


Solatium

by crookedmouth



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bending (Avatar), Caught between a rock and a hard place, Character Study, Dark Past, F/M, Fire Nation (Avatar), Fire Nation Politics (Avatar), Fire Nation Royal Family, Fleshing out unnamed background characters, Gen, Humiliation, I kind of tied bending in to sensuality and I'm not sorry, Kinda Sorta AU but I think I can bring it around, Moral Dilemmas, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Ozai Gets a Life-Changing Fieldtrip, Politics, Prison, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Sozin's Comet, Strong Female Characters, The Spirit World, The nonbender perspective, The people of ATLA are actually hella violent, Torture, Vaatu (Avatar) - Freeform, War, Worldbuilding, and a terrible person, post-comics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:22:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25462396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedmouth/pseuds/crookedmouth
Summary: A few years into his reign, Fire Lord Zuko finds himself facing a wholly unexpected challenge – a growing movement demanding the execution of his father. Though steadfast in his commitment to upholding the Avatar’s designated punishment, Zuko finds himself struggling with the scale of those crying for Ozai’s blood. Not only is he assailed by representatives from the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribes, but an incredible number of his own citizens have their reasons for wishing death upon the fallen Phoenix King.An incident of startling violence forces Zuko to remove his father from prison and have him secretly relocated. Caught between the remnants of New Ozai Society revisionists and those willing to defy their new Fire Lord in order to carry out a dark vision of justice, Zuko enlists the help of a soldier from Iroh's past, desperate for someone neutral enough to trust with his father's life.But Ozai isn't as helpless as he seems, and the woman duty-bound to protect him might actually be the one in greatest danger.Set after the comics.
Relationships: Iroh & Ozai (Avatar), Mai/Zuko (Avatar), Ozai & Zuko (Avatar), Ozai (Avatar) & Original Character(s)
Comments: 126
Kudos: 66





	1. The Threat

Time was a difficult thing to keep track of in the Capital City Prison, but with little else to occupy himself with, Ozai had managed to discern the guards’ schedule in a matter of days. When the narrow strip of light that leaked into his cell fell on the third bar of his cage, the morning shift would arrive to replace their late-night counterparts. An hour later – he had actually counted the seconds, one day – a tray of food would be delivered. His next meal would not appear until the sun reached the opposite wall of his cell, at which point the evening round of guards would take over.

Every five days there was an inspection of sorts, during which a physician would examine him for signs of infection, illness, or injury. Following the inspection, a bucket of water and toiletries were provided for bathing, as well as a pair of freshly laundered prison garments. Cleanliness was a cornerstone of Fire Nation culture, but its significance went hand-in-hand with punishment. The long stretches of time between access to that meagre bucket of cold water were meant to induce shame, to remind the prisoners of their removal from dignity and grace. For Ozai, who had been fastidious to the point of obsession as a younger man, it was an aggravation rivalled only by his son’s continued visits.

Zuko’s comings and goings followed no reliable schedule, though the boy – _young man, now,_ Ozai thought – was no longer as frequent a visitor as he had been. At first he had been motivated by the burning need to know the truth about his mother, Ursa. There had also been his need for political advice, the weight of his responsibilities as Fire Lord unexpectedly heavy. As time wore on, however, Zuko’s reasons became less clear to his father. Sometimes he sat in perfect quiet, comparable to Ozai’s smoldering silence, just long enough to drink a pot of tea.

Something had shifted in him, the galvanizing influence of the throne finally starting to show. Zuko had not succumbed to the pressures as Ozai had assumed he would, but had instead found a sense of conviction and resolve. The realization sent a pang of something unfamiliar through him.

The last time Zuko had visited, he brought strange news.

The Fire Lord had barely managed to sit down and hand his father the steaming cup of jasmine tea before blurting out: “I received a letter today from the Earth Kingdom.”

Ozai had blown on his tea disinterestedly. “And?” he drawled.

“It seems a growing number of King Kuei’s people have signed a petition asking for your execution.”

The tea burned as it slipped down Ozai’s throat. He made a noncommittal grunt, drawing himself up where he sat. “Would that not be in defiance of their precious Avatar’s decree?”

Zuko considered his own tea before setting it down. He returned Ozai’s gaze unflinchingly, his voice level. “Every Avatar in history has been defied. They do what they believe to be right, but not everyone is going to agree with those decisions. Nor are their decisions necessarily right for everyone, in the end. The Harmony Restoration Movement taught us that much.”

Ozai nodded, trying to ignore the sound of his own pulse. “And where does this leave you?” he asked, voice taking on a steely edge. “Are the demands of a foreign people – a defeated people – all it takes for you to consider patricide?”

Illuminated by the steady, warm glow of the lanterns, Zuko’s eyes took on the appearance of molten gold. He set his mouth in a hard line, then poured some fresh tea into his cup. The mug in Ozai’s hand remained empty, his palm uncomfortably hot.

“I once advised Aang to kill you,” the younger man finally admitted. “So no, it’s not an unfamiliar thought.”

A glowering silence settled between them, Ozai’s lip curling into a snarl.

“Not that it should surprise you,” Zuko continued with an uncharacteristically hard tone, “given what you did to grandfather.”

“You mean what your mother did.”

 _That_ got his son’s attention. Zuko’s head snapped up, his jaw clenched. He seethed, but then seemed to gain his composure.

“I meant what I said,” he resumed, “back when you were first put in here. I had hoped you would find some part of yourself, maybe repent, get started down the right path.” A bark of laughter almost escaped Ozai, but Zuko continued solemnly, “But now I see that was far too much to expect.”

In Ozai’s mind, the words conjured a mirror image. The Day of Black Sun. Him, resting atop a dais deep in the bowels of Caldera, his son standing before him. Banishment, too merciful. Redemption, too optimistic.

“When mother visited you, I had really hoped – ”

“How dare you speak of her to me!” Ozai roared, his suddenly crushing grip splintering the ornate tea cup. He flung his arm, the shards scattering across the cell, a few finding their mark and landing against Zuko’s frame. Ozai’s eyes burned as they raked across his son.

“She found me no small man on our wedding night,” he hissed.

A look of disgust transformed the younger man’s face. “Don’t be crude.”

He stood, brushing the broken pieces of porcelain from his robe as he composed himself.

“You have given me advice as a Fire Lord over the last three years, and for that, I am grateful. But I believe now it is my turn to advise you.” He stooped, picking up the tray on which the teapot sat, placing his own cup beside it. “I can change my mind, father. You would do well to remember it.”

Ozai’s brows knit together, comprehension momentarily clouded by his rage. As he caught up to the threat in his son’s words he opened his mouth, but Zuko had already turned away.

* * *

Later that evening, Mai had trailed a manicured nail against Zuko’s chest, admiring him beneath a thin sheen of sweat.

“You really said that to him?” she asked, incredulous. The smile that split Zuko’s face was roguish, charming. The smile of someone who knew they had done something unprecedented, and possibly very stupid.

“But… you don’t actually mean it…” she wavered. The smile vanished, replaced by all seriousness.

“No,” Zuko replied, turning on his side to face her. “But it felt so incredibly good to say.”

And it had. Just for that moment, he had allowed himself to indulge in the intimidation and fearmongering that had defined his childhood. Of course he would never consider executing his father. For one, it was exactly the kind of thing that Ozai himself was capable of – and Azulon too, for that matter – and Zuko wanted to divorce himself from those men as much as possible, even if requests for his father’s death were more than reasonable. He was a different sort of Fire Lord, and peace and mercy were to be at the heart of his reign.

It was more than that, though. Aang had found an alternative to the violence expected of him in order to restore balance – a typical airbending maneuver if ever there was one – and Zuko not only respected this as an act of the Avatar, but the decision of a friend. He would not undo this manifestation of Aang’s personal integrity, it was neither his right nor his destiny.

But Ozai didn’t need to know that.

Mai nuzzled his shoulder, carving her nail further down Zuko’s chest, his stomach, then lower. “Good,” she purred simply. “That man has earned every bit of fear that comes his way.”

Her touch coaxed a groan from deep in Zuko’s throat. He brought his hand up to her face, pulling her in to a burning kiss.

“Let’s talk about something else.”

* * *

That had been nearly two weeks ago. At first Ozai had listened more intently whenever he caught snatches of the guards’ gossip, but if news of the petition had reached them, they failed to let on. So the fallen Phoenix King resumed his routines of sleep, eating, meditation, and practice.

During his father’s rule, Ozai devoted himself to the mastery of firebending. He had poured over every available scroll and tome detailing theory and form, studied under several prominent masters, and had balanced his theory with daily combat exercises. He even chose to practice almost exclusively at night, when the power of the sun would be largely inaccessible and his bending totally dependent on the strength of his own chi.

Neither he nor Iroh had been prodigies like their father, but they each had come into firebending renown. Iroh for his creativity and adoption of various other bending techniques, Ozai for his sheer power. And he had done it all without serving on the battlefield.

Imprisoned as he was within a cell that barely accommodated his height, Ozai had had to adjust his katas. In the early days of his sentence, the weekly physician visits had been marked by bandaged knuckles and bruised legs. Now though, he had come to develop a new form of restrained movement, a previously unexplored close-quarters style of fighting.

_Kick. Kick. Shift. Sweep. Crouch. Punch. Lunge. Punch again. Pivot._

Ozai breathed deeply, feeling the path of air through his nostrils, down into his lungs. His veins, his muscles, the pit of his stomach, the soles of his feet, the suspended weight of his groin, he was in tune with it all. Before the Avatar had taken his bending, there would have been another awareness within the mix, sometimes little more than a warm pulse, at other times a searing presence. The flow of his chi was still there, but muted in its connection to his internal fire. Strangely, over the course of his exercises, Ozai had come to feel as though it was not entirely lost to him, but constrained. He still radiated heat, could still sense the burning volcanic power beneath the Capital City Prison. If he reached deep within himself, he could retrace the paths of energy necessary to call up lightning. It was a phantom pain, a teasing conviction that any moment, he might feel a familiar spark in his palm.

There was something sensual in the unfulfillment of it. He was hanging on the edge of the precipice, an unending denial of release, close, _so close_ …

Ozai clenched his teeth and his eyes, letting out an agonized growl as his fist thrust forward into the air. Nothing.

He panted, easing himself down against the wall of his cell. Outside, he could hear the sharp sound of armor clapping together in salute. He glanced to where the ray of sunlight should fall against the stones to signal the arrival of his evening meal and the changing of his guards, but the sun had not traveled far enough yet. Its light still rested several bars away.

His mind wandered over the list of potential reasons for an early shift change. A guard may have taken ill, or a prisoner elsewhere in the tower of cells may have attempted to kill themselves – it did happen – and it would be necessary to replace the guards who witnessed it. Perhaps a family matter. Ozai searched his memory for who had been in command of the prison during his own rule, trying to recall whether the man had been prone to bureaucratic busywork. He pinched the bridge of his nose. _Agni, what had that man’s name been?_

With a groan and a creak, the door to his cell opened. Ozai glanced once again to the corner of his cell, reassuring himself that the sun had indeed not made its usual circuit. A guard stepped in, his figure unfamiliar.

“So this is where the great and powerful Phoenix King spends his days,” the guard sneered, face obscured by his helmet. Ozai settled himself more comfortably, cocking an eyebrow disdainfully. Gloating would never look as good on others as it did himself.

Another guard entered, holding a tray of food. Somehow the visual confirmation that the daily routine had not been completely betrayed made Ozai’s shoulders relax, just a little. It was just a batch of new guards, early because they wanted the chance to harass him.

The tray of food was set before him, easily within reach from behind the bars. Ozai waited for the two to leave, but the first guard goaded him.

“Aren’t you hungry? Better eat up!” The challenge in his voice was obvious. Ozai assessed the other man’s posture, his proximity to the tray of food and his closeness to the cage. Then he turned his head, ignoring them both.

“Tch!” the new guard scoffed derisively, “Just as I thought.” He wrapped his hand around one of the bars of Ozai’s cage and leaned in close. “You’re going to wish the Avatar _had_ killed you by the time I’m done with you.”

 _Pathetic_ , Ozai thought, a grin creeping onto his lips. “Please,” he drawled, “if you’re going to threaten me, at least be original.”

The guard huffed and stood back. He and his companion exited the cell, the door falling closed behind them with a loud clank. Ozai let out a sigh, rolling his eyes over to survey the tray of food they had left behind. He made to reach for it, then paused. Unbidden, the hair on his arm rose up. He blinked, dropped the arm and ran his hand along the skin, smoothing the hairs down. The tray of food he left alone, untouched come morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ozai's comment about his wedding night is a nod to Ursa's exchange with him at the end of 'Smoke and Shadows, pt 3'.  
> Next chapter should be a bit juicier, so keep those warnings in mind.


	2. Unease and Distress

To his advisors and the Fire Sages, Zuko is certain that his trip to the Earth Kingdom must seem a frivolous vacation, an abandonment of his duty as Fire Lord during a particularly wrought time. In some ways it is – he has taken Mai, his mother, Ikem, and Kiyi with him – and for all intents and purposes they are treating the excursion like a family holiday. Ikem and Ursa are particularly interested in exploring the arts and theatre districts of Ba Sing Se, and though Mai is less impressed, Zuko can see from the corner of his eye that she is enjoying his half-sister’s awestruck reaction at all they encounter.

She was surprisingly popular with the young girl, and Zuko only wished they had been able to bring Mai’s own brother along. Tom-Tom had been left bedridden with his mother, struck down by a seasonal illness. Hardly life-threatening, but very phlegmy. 

Anything his family wants to do, Zuko encourages. He has his own tasks in mind during their visit, of course, but he enjoys being able to provide this escape. It is so like his own childhood trips to Ember Island – and yet lacking so much emotional heaviness – that he hopes Kiyi at least will look back on these moments with joy and appreciation.

In much the same way, he views the visit as an apology of sorts to Ursa. Dragged from her home and essentially imprisoned in Caldera, only to be banished and forced to live in hiding – Zuko is almost ashamed of how much of the world he has seen and come to know while his mother has spent most of her life in only one of two places. Trips such as this are his offering to her, his literal giving of the world.

He even attempted to grow closer with Ikem by inviting the man out to an Earth Rumble match during a stopover in Gaoling, just the two of them. He realized once they had both taken their seats that it was a foolishly shallow estimation of what men do with one another – he can’t even bring himself to imagine doing this with his own father, it is so absurd – but by the end of the round Ikem was completely invested, standing and shouting and at one point even heckling a referee. It was a great evening, highly entertaining, though hardly intimate. Perhaps that is enough. He and his mother’s husband share a tremendous amount of respect for each other, but he is not looking for a stepfather, nor has Ikem ever tried to treat Zuko as though he were his son.

Each stop they make along the way to Ba Sing Se is marked by a visit with a magistrate or governor, where Zuko largely listens in silence, hearing the concerns of the Earth Kingdom people with respect to his father’s past infractions and continued existence. Sometimes Mai stayed with him, an unlikely but welcome mediator when topics such as her father’s New Ozai Society were broached. The more he hears, the more Zuko finds himself relieved, thankful even, that he spent several years in banishment, ignorant of the former Fire Lord’s war council decisions.

Villages razed to the ground. Non-combatant civilians injured in the act of surrender. Family members still missing, even this many years later. Livestock pointlessly slaughtered. Yellow-eyed children born to teenage girls and women whose husbands had been serving on the front. The stories are endless in their variations, though all the same in the end – the Fire Nation army came and did terrible things, all of it sanctioned by Ozai, presumably.

As Zuko climbs the familiar steps to the Jasmine Dragon Tea Shop, he works over the latest batch of concerns that have been brought before him. He knows now, from experience, that it is unlikely every single act of violence and terror committed by Fire Nation soldiers is something his father would have known about, or even have directed. There are simply too many men and women for one man to keep track of – hence the division of the army and navy into its generals and admirals. Not to mention the existence of several special task forces, few of whom seemed interested in burdening themselves with usual military reporting protocol. After all, Colonel Mongke’s Rough Rhinos were little better than mercenaries even before they defected. 

It’s not that Zuko imagines his father would have stopped or been distressed by any of the atrocities committed by the military, but it feels wrong somehow to not acknowledge that the man could only have been directly responsible for so much. There are many others down the chain of command who are guilty of much greater complicity. Besides which, Ozai only held the throne for five years. They were intense and damaging years, yes, but Zuko has begun to notice that some of the complaints being leveled against his father are erroneous – they ought to be attributed to Azulon.

His conviction about keeping Ozai alive has not weakened, if anything, he has begun to feel protective of his father in a way that surprises him. Part of it is the simple injustice of the whole situation, but there is something else. The more that he hears, the less patience he sees. In the Earth Kingdom at least, discontent at Ozai’s imprisonment has grown, and even though many see his every breath as a betrayal of justice, there are some who have begun to do more than sign petitions. Rallies are being held. Threats have been made, and though Zuko doubts they are serious, he has begun to wonder.

“Nephew!”

Iroh’s booming salutation broke the young Fire Lord from his contemplation, the burly man’s warm embrace a welcome distraction.

“And sister!” his uncle beamed over his shoulder at Ursa, who laughed. Kiyi peaked around from behind Ikem and Mai, her face brightening in recognition.

“Please, come inside,” Iroh ushered them all into the teashop, and Zuko felt some of the tension easing from his shoulders as the aromatic steam rose to greet his nostrils. It had been a long day.

They sat, Iroh bustling about to serve tea before settling himself. Kiyi sipped delightedly on his uncle’s strange concoction of milky tea and tapioca pearls, the only person Zuko can think of who actually likes it, while he nursed a mug of steaming jasmine. Ikem took an appreciative slurp of matcha, his mother cradling her cup of chamomile, and Mai unsurprisingly opted for the strongest blend of all, a sencha mixed with something that tasted bitterly metallic, not unlike the explosive powder the Fire Nation used to make bombs. A moment of contented quiet, and then Zuko is lost in the pleasant lull of conversation with his family.

Iroh rises momentarily to retrieve food, setting tray after tray before them. Steamed buns, bowls of rice, small finger cakes, smoked meats, vegetables in a savory sauce. As he begins to eat, Zuko’s mind returns to the issue at hand, chewing on his thoughts even as his mouth moves in the same motions of mastication.

Letters have begun to arrive from the Water Tribe – both North and South – less zealous than some from the Earth Kingdom, but no less justified in their demands. For the nearly successful genocide against the waterbenders of the South, they are asking for the right to try Ozai in their own courts and pass their own judgment. He tried to imagine what a fatal sentence would look like out on the ice. Did the waterbenders drown their guilty? Strip them and leave them to freeze overnight?

“Well, nephew,” Iroh’s voice coaxed him yet again out of his thoughts, “I know you’re not just here for my tea. What troubles you that you would come all this way?”

Zuko nodded his head, knowing he had been found out. Iroh always knows.

“I promised you peace and retirement, which I intend to honour, but I need advice and thought it more fair that I come to you rather than ask you to return to the capital.”

Iroh gestured for him to continue. Zuko hated having to discuss such things in front of his mother, but it had to be done.

“Suki has told me that my father’s detractors may not be as far away as the Earth Kingdom or the Water Tribes – in fact, she believes there may be a great number of Fire Nation citizens who are unhappy with Aang’s decision to let him live. She overheard some discussions at the prison.” The young Fire Lord appraises the flash of concern in his uncle’s eye and is quick to continue, “The guards have since been reassigned, don’t worry. But it may be a temporary solution, especially since there are also those who still want to see him returned to power.”

The New Ozai Society may have been dispersed and its head imprisoned, but Zuko knew better than to believe that his father’s supporters were completely gone. He counted himself lucky that Zhao hadn’t been seen since his defeat at the North, for he strongly suspected the admiral would be right at the forefront of deposing him.

Zuko swallowed a great gulp of tea, and Iroh nodded his head.

“Mm. Ozai is nothing if not a contentious figure.”

“The people of the Fire Nation are struggling with all the change in the last five years. We’ve gone from being a conquering force to a defeated nation attempting reconciliation. I’m trying to instill systems of education and re-education to help everyone understand the truth of our history and our actions during the Hundred Year War, but it is hard for many of them, especially after years and years of lies. Attempts at scaling back our offensive forces are seen as a threat to the livelihood of soldiers in the army and navy, and many are defecting. Peace is not seen as profitable.”

In truth, this has been the hardest part of claiming the throne. Even when he had confronted his father about the amazing lie of the Fire Nation’s imperialist spread of glory, he had underestimated how many of his own people had accepted it for truth. And it was an uncomfortable unveiling – it involved shame and disgrace and a reckoning that the prouder citizens of the Fire Nation were almost guaranteed to not accept. They had simply seen themselves as too powerful – had actually been so – and now that they were being led away from war and conquest, now that their very cultural drives had shifted, it was far easier to believe their leadership had weakened and the old ways were better.

And many, even in the colonies, had seen his father as the physical manifestation of that superiority. With his height, his powerful bending, _Agni_ even just with the wall of muscle that was his chest, Ozai had more than looked the picture of indomitable strength and virility, politically and otherwise.

Zuko considered the small cake that has made its way into his fingers, dropping it back onto his plate with a frown. Perhaps he ought to start waking up early and doing a few extra katas… 

“And what wisdom do you think I can offer, Zuko?” Iroh asked, stroking his beard, “Many of these issues are ultimately linked to the Avatar’s judgement. Would it not be better to invite him to the Fire Nation so that he may explain his reasoning to the people?”

Zuko could feel the eyes of not only his uncle, but his mother and his girlfriend. Mai had a practiced look of indifference on her face, but there was something he was unused to seeing in Ursa’s expression. It was barely there, but it looked like disappointment. He shook his head, returning only Iroh’s gaze.

“No,” he said firmly, “Aang is many things, but he is not the Fire Lord. These are my people, and my problems to solve. Besides, it is not the Avatar’s decision that is being questioned, but my support of it. I can’t ask him to intercede in all of my affairs.”

Iroh tilted his head in acknowledgment, inwardly proud at his nephew’s growth as a leader. Even a few years ago, Zuko would have struggled to trust his own judgment in this.

“What I need, Uncle, is your knowledge of the world. If detractors can infiltrate Capital City Prison, so can supporters. I think we’ll need to move my father until some of this unrest settles, but I can’t send him to a prison elsewhere, where the same problems might arise. I need somewhere no one will think of to look for him.”

At this, Ursa put the bowl of rice she had been eating from down with a clang.

“You’re releasing him?” Her voice was strained, not stricken with terror as it might once have been, but nonetheless troubled. Beside her, Ikem brought his hand across her back, the ends of his mustache bristling.

“What if he manages to seek out your sister?”

Iroh made a rumbling noise in his throat, hand once again stroking his beard.

“Do not worry, sister. In all the time that she has been free, Azula has not once tried to see her father. I suspect she has grown to see his defeat as a sign of weakness and has deemed him unworthy of her attentions.”

“And I’m not releasing him into the wild like a bird,” Zuko added hurriedly, hoping to ease his mother’s distress, “I was hoping that Uncle may have contacts in the White Lotus who might help keep him under surveillance – "

“The White Lotus?” Iroh repeated skeptically, “no, Zuko, we are too old for that. And in truth, many of them may be tempted by the chance of airing their personal grievances against the former Fire Lord. But I might know someone who can help…” He trailed off, brow furrowed.

“Who?” The young Fire Lord’s voice was earnest. “It would need to be someone who hates Ozai enough to not want him back on the throne, but who doesn’t hate him enough to want to kill him. That’s not a lot of people.”

A small smile tugged at the corners of Iroh’s mouth, and something glinted in the amber of his eyes, not quite mischief, not quite threat. Even dressed in the humble green of the Earth Kingdom, he looked more like the Dragon of the West than he had in years. 

“A soldier,” he said, letting his hand drop from his beard to rest, palm down, on the table. “A captain now, actually. She was under my command during the siege of this great city, and she is the only person who could rival you, dear nephew, when it comes to honour.”

Zuko stiffened slightly, but accepted the comment for what it is.

“Besides,” Iroh continued, “she has already survived one encounter with my brother.”

Ursa pinched her brow at this. “What do you mean?”

“I sent her with word of my decision to leave the army following our defeat. Of course, at the time, I assumed she would be speaking with Fire Lord Azulon, and not Ozai. Though he may have been happy with me out of the way, I doubt it was news he responded well to, let alone the messenger who delivered it.”

“I think I remember that,” Zuko interjected, hesitantly. He’d been young and tired and still desperately mourning the loss of his mother when it happened. “It was shortly after father’s coronation, maybe a few weeks? A woman came to the palace late at night, covered in dirt and insisting that she speak to the Fire Lord. The servants were in an uproar that she wouldn’t wait until morning. They made her take a bath before they’d let her anywhere near father.”

Iroh laughed. “Yes, that sounds like Ta Ming.” Catching Ursa’s bewildered look, he added, “Oh! She’s normally quite clean.”

Zuko’s mother let out a serious breath through her nose, unaccustomed to speaking so frankly on this particular topic. Beneath the table, her hands were cool.

“Whatever her grooming habits are like, I want you both to consider something.” Her yellow eyes were piercing as they drilled into her son and former brother-in-law. “On the outside, it sounds very much as though you are condemning this poor woman to grow old with Ozai as a sort of guardian-jailor to him. His fate doesn’t concern me much anymore – I’ve said everything I’m ever going to say to that man – but do you really think _she_ deserves spending the next couple years with him as her only companion?”

Ursa’s voice found an unexpectedly hard edge.

“Zuko, my son. Can you honestly tell me you don’t see how that might go wrong?”

The young Fire Lord opened his mouth to speak, then closed his teeth together, bowing his head. He reminded himself that his father had no bending, that he was half the threat that he used to be. If Iroh trusted this Ta Ming woman, then that should be more than sufficient. But his mother’s words carried great weight, especially now that he knew what her own experience had been.

It was Mai, ultimately, who reiterated that the arrangement was not meant to be permanent. Only a few years.

Ursa picked up her rice bowl, staring down at the many grains sticking to the side.

“It’s always longer with him, somehow.” 

* * *

For Ozai, time had lost all meaning.

It had been, he thought, roughly a month since his son’s last visit and that first strange encounter with the new guard, a man he now understood was called Kyeong. Since then, his system of marking the passage of time had been completely disrupted – the sun continued to rise and trace a pattern against his cage bars, yes, but nothing else had been permitted to continue in predictable tedium.

Kyeong and his fellows had kept him from sleeping for the past several days. He was exhausted, furious beyond comprehension, but hitting a point of weak delirium. They did it intermittently at first, allowing him small bursts of rest before throwing buckets of water onto him, or repeatedly hammering a helmet against his cell door. Now though, as soon as his eyelids so much as drooped, one of them would holler loudly right in his ear.

He rubbed aggressively at his eyes, pressing the heel of his palm against the sockets hard enough to see flashes of colour against the dim backdrop of his eyelids. 

Of course, sleep wasn’t the only thing they had been trying to deprive him of. Shortly after Kyeong’s first visit, he had surrendered his old uniform only to find that there was no replacement forthcoming. Nakedness was not the same source of shame in the Fire Nation as it might have been elsewhere, certainly not for a man as proud of his body as Ozai, but the cold nights had brought their own indignity. He’d been forced to draw his knees up to his chest like a child, rubbing his arms to stimulate warmth. His muscles actually ached from the constant shivering, and that only kept him further from sleep.

Ozai could feel the inexorable fall of his chin, his eyes rolling back, just for a moment –

“Come on, loser lord!” A young man barked in his face, “Keep it together!”

Grudgingly, he opened his eyes. The noise no longer caused him to startle, but the insult nonetheless sent a burning coil through his gut.

He was tired, and he was hungry.

After his first refusal to eat, meals began arriving irregularly. Then – when they did arrive at all – the food appeared in a state of great deterioration. He had been so hungry at the end of the first week of missing or outright spoiled food that he had swallowed half a breadroll crawling with maggots before noticing.

Retching had been painful. His stomach had nothing but acid to bring up.

It had been that day he realized that the physician wouldn’t be coming to check up on him.

About every other day the guards would bring one meagre tin of water for him. His kidneys ached, and pissing had become an unpleasant ordeal. Agni, even standing up to do it was becoming a problem, his head swam with dizziness each time he staggered upright, clinging to the bars of his cage for support like a man twice his age. 

Not worst of all, though perhaps most humiliating, they had stopped allowing him to bathe. A layer of grime covered his skin, mixing with the blood of his cracked knuckles and splintered fingernails. His hair, once a source of vanity, was repugnant. The greasy, matted black locks hung unkempt about his face, and his scalp prickled unpleasantly with the movement of vermin.

Dimly, Ozai knew that they were torturing him. That they would probably kill him in the process, starved and exhausted as he was. He wondered if Zuko knew, if the boy might not only be aware but turning a blind eye to it. The thought of his own son allowing this disturbed him in a way he had not possible - Zuko's tender heart was an assurance, something that could be counted on and manipulated. Without it, he became unpredictable, and Ozai was woefully unprepared to reckon with a son as capable of cruelty as himself. 

The guard in his cell kicked at the cage, a burst of flame shooting from the curled tip of his boot. The flame narrowly missed Ozai’s own exposed toes, and he could feel himself flinch away, scrabbling against the stones to rest back defensively on his heels. Unwell as he is, his own display of timidity disgusts him.

Three more guards entered, Kyeong among them. The man grinned obnoxiously, his helmet slung casually beneath his arm. He jutted his chin and one of his companions eased the cell door closed with creak. 

“Hey, Phoenix King, let’s have a speech!”

One of the other guards let out a horrid whooping and squawking, an awful parody of bird noise. Ozai blinked, desperately willing his head to stay upright on his shoulders, anchoring himself in consciousness by envisioning his hand halfway down the guard’s throat, ripping his tongue out at the root.

They were all young men, older than Zuko by a number of years, but still very much his junior. All of them men who had likely served in the war, or had at least received some training in the domestic forces. Men who might have lost loved ones to Ozai’s own campaigns against the Northern Water Tribe and the Earth Kingdom, or who had been forced to the colonies. Men who had reasons to be angry, and not enough years yet to have exhausted their wrath.

Unable to hold the vision of a red spray erupting from the squawking guard’s throat, Ozai felt himself pitch forward. He caught himself by bracing one hand against his knee, and tried to clear his vision. Once, even without firebending, facing off against four such men would have been nothing more than a simple training exercise. He would have destroyed them.

The thought burned pleasantly, rekindled a sense of pride that had been progressively wrenched from him, but the tactical part of his brain knew this was an entirely different situation. His eyes fluttered, struggling to stay focused on Kyeong, the leader of this little gang. He was jangling the ring of keys on his belt.

“What do you think, Yueh?” he asked the barrel-chested man beside him, “Time to let him out for _exercise_?”

Ozai’s fingers twitched, a phantom pain that has not lessened since his encounter with the Avatar. He could _feel_ the spark of lighting, _knew_ the fire was still within him and simply needed to be drawn out, but the permanent blockage of his chi refused to allow it. And oh, how desperately he wanted his bending back in this moment.

Yueh, the largest of the four, let out a deep guffaw, urging his smaller companion onward. Kyeong sneered and waggled the correct key dramatically at Ozai before inserting it into the cage door, the tumblers of the lock falling into place with a chilling _clink._

The fallen Phoenix King hunched his shoulders, tensing.

With an equally flamboyant sweep of his arm, Kyeong wrenched the cage door open, metal hinges squealing in protest.

“What’s the matter, Phoenix King?” the noisy guard from earlier snarled, “Little birds like you should be happy to have an open cage. Aren’t you going to say thank you?”

He pumped his fists in two quick motions, and Ozai had to leap to his feet to avoid being burnt. The bright flash of fire left a glaring afterburn on his vision, and he realized with dismay that even his hearing seemed disjointed. The voices of the guards were blending together. 

“Get him, Kyeong!”

“Make him wish the Avatar _had_ killed him!”

“That he’d never been born!”

“Sing, little bird!”

Kyeong reached for him through the open door of the case, and like a fool Ozai took the bait. He lunged, hoping to throw the younger man off-balance, maybe catch him by the throat, and sealed his fate with that one move. Weakened as he was, his lunge had been little more than a tottering step forward, the sudden movement sending a rush of blood to his head, and all Kyeong had to do was take a step back and let Ozai fall onto his face.

The younger man grabbed a fistful of Ozai’s hair, dragging him out of the cage. Laughter erupted, and then one of the other guards kicked him in the side, hard. Stubbornly, Ozai clenched his teeth, refused to satisfy them by making any noise. But he couldn’t help the aggravated howl that escaped when Kyeong hauled him up, hard.

“What’s the matter, Ozai,” the young man brought his face uncomfortably close. Disrespectfully close. “Can’t take the heat?”

That was when Ozai finally registered the acrid smell of smoke, and the hot sensation at his spine. One of the other guards had made fists of fire, and was pushing his burning hands ever closer to Ozai’s bare skin. The pain of it was searing, and in a panic he struggled, twisting and thrashing even as Kyeong yanked his hair harder.

Yueh punched him, and as his knuckles made contact, Ozai felt as much as heard the crack of his cheekbone. Another hit, a smaller fist, and his nose flooded with blood.

He caught the next punch before it landed – on instinct as much as anything else, he was hardly lucid – but was only able to weakly shove off his attacker. From behind him, Ozai could feel a wave of heat approach, and then suddenly all he could do was howl with pain. The firebending guard had struck him with an arc of flame, a molten line burning itself from shoulder blade to hip. Kyeong released his grip, shaking his hand as though he too had been scalded. With nothing left to keep him upright, Ozai crumpled.

“Is that it?” The firebending guard’s voice was disappointed, “I thought he was supposed to be some kind of legend. I’ve known whores who can take a better beating, and like it.”

Kyeong nudged the fallen man with his boot, and Ozai trembled, curling in on himself. Exhaustion warred with his fury, but his body was its own battlefield. 

“Naw,” Kyeong smirked, “we’re not finished just yet. Lhao, why don’t you get the surprise?” The other guard saluted, mockingly, and then disappeared from the cell into the hallway.

A moment of calm washed over the cell, nothing but the sound of Ozai’s labored breathing to disturb it. Then the cell door creaked open, and Lhao returned with a bucket swinging from one hand. Yueh gripped both of Ozai’s shoulders and lifted him onto his knees, almost gently. Kyeong leaned in again, patting the other man’s cheeks as though to wake him up. Sluggish blood stained the lower half of Ozai’s face, small red droplets dripping from the frayed end of his beard.

He spat at Kyeong, more blood than spittle, but the young man was so close it was impossible to miss.

“What are you waiting for, you miserable welp?” Ozai roared, drawing on a rage he hadn’t been able to feel since Ursa turned her back on him, refusing him the control that had defined their marriage. “Kill me and get it over with!”

He was too weak, his mind and body ravaged by lack of food and sleep. There’d be no getting out of this, but still, he refused to cow to them.

Kyeong wiped the spit and blood from his face, holding Ozai’s gaze fast with his own. Then, lasciviously, he licked the other man’s saliva from the back of his hand. One of the last remaining threads holding Ozai together snapped, and he thrashed within Yueh’s meaty grip, hurling an incoherent stream of curses and oaths at the young men.

The guards just laughed, and, taking advantage of Ozai’s open mouth, dumped the contents of the bucket onto his head. It was shit of some kind, he realized too late, the rancid smell of it pummeling up through the blood in his nose. In his hair, on his skin, dangerously close to entering his mouth, burning his eyes. He shook with rage and disgust, still struggling.

Lhao grabbed his wrists and brought them behind his back, the movement splitting the fresh burns and forcing Ozai to choke back another pathetic noise of pain. A pair of manacles clicked tight against his skin, and Yueh let him sink down to his knees. They were merely dark shapes now, menacing shadows he couldn’t get into focus. Ozai realized it wasn’t just the shit smeared across his face that was obscuring his vision – one of his eyes was swelling shut.

“Oh, don’t worry, my lord,” Kyeong smirked coolly, “we’ll help get that filth off your face.”

There was a rustle of fabric, and Ozai blinked his one good eye furiously to clear it, so he could see what was happening. His pulse hammered in his ears, the adrenaline of the attack and his all-pervasive tiredness brought together in an ugly cocktail of desperate wakefulness without clarity. Perhaps his heart would simply give out on him and that would be the end of it. 

Four slivers of colour appeared where before there had only been the muddled dark of uniform. Ozai tried to scramble backwards, sick understanding breaking through the fog of his mind, but with his arms bound behind him he was too off-balance. His leg weakened beneath him, and he fell hard onto his haunches, trapped. Kyeong practically hooted with laughter as the first stream of piss caught the dethroned Fire Lord square on the jaw.

The guards’ urine was hot and stinging as it showered against his face. It welled in his ears, splashed against his lips, trailed down his chest and dampened the exposed flesh of his thighs. He turned his face furiously, spluttering, squeezed his eyes shut, tried to escape, but the four guards formed a tight semicircle around him. He wanted to gag, could almost taste the bile at the back of his throat, but whether from the smell or the humiliation, he no longer knew.

After what seemed an impossibly long time, it stopped. Behind his back, Ozai’s fists clenched so tightly he cut into the skin of his palm. A part of him that no longer seemed connected with his body was horrified to realize that the dryness of his mouth had been made worse by the sound of their pissing. It had actually made him thirsty.

Distrustful of the quiet, Ozai dared to open his one eye, the piss dripping from his hair and face stinging him.

“Tsk tsk,” Kyeong clucked his tongue exaggeratedly, his hand still casually curled around the shaft of his penis. “What a mess you are, Ozai. Hard to believe my sister used to touch herself to the thought of you.”

The other men sniggered. Ozai barely registered the comment, his focus largely taken up by what Kyeong was doing with his hand. The young guard sighed. “Still, that royal mouth remains _quite_ handsome.”

There was something feral in his tone, and Ozai raised his gaze to Kyeong’s just as mortified understanding dawned on him. The young man took a step forward, now almost fully erect from his own stroking, and gripped his prisoner’s jaw roughly, forcing Ozai’s mouth open.

“Now tell me,” he crooned, voice velvety in its self-assurance, “isn’t it the duty of the Fire Lord to serve his citizens?”

Ozai was choking, Kyeong’s firm grip and his bloodied nose making it hard to breathe. He tried to shake his head, to get away from the other man, but where was he supposed to go? His stomach felt like a nest of two-headed rat vipers, his blood had gone cold even as his own heartbeat thundered. So this was it. This was how the Phoenix King would meet his ignominious end – not at the hands of a child-Avatar in battle, but beaten and raped in a prison cell.

Kyeong had just jutted his hips forward when a distinctly unfamiliar and feminine voice broke through the roar of his own pulse.

“ _What in Agni’s name_ _are you doing?_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The latter half of this chapter was supposed to be the whole fic -- Ozai getting roughed up in prison, basically -- but of course it's me and somehow that had to grow into a huge other thing. It's been interesting trying to consider the political realities of the Fire Nation, though. Whole generations raised on propaganda and toxic nationalism, not all of whom accept it blindly, but many of whom would struggle with the regime change. I appreciate that the comics tried to explore this, especially given how quickly The Legend of Korra moved through several serious socio-political movements with seemingly no aftermath. Still a great show! But you can't tell me that the Equalists were a one-and-done...  
> Anyway, more of Ozai having just the absolute worst time of it to come, though he dishes out his fair share of suffering, too. Keep those warnings in mind.


	3. The Captain

A messenger hawk was already well on its way from Ba Sing Se to the Fire Nation capital by the time Iroh sought Ursa out, finding her alone on the balcony of his teashop. Zuko, he knew, would have questions for him in the morning, but for now it was his nephew’s mother who needed the most convincing. He had counselled her before regarding Ozai, and he considered it a great victory to have helped her relinquish her fear, but this was different. Fear for oneself was not the same as fear for another, nor was the fear that festered in her now the same as it had been for her youngest daughter. His platitudes – wise though they might be – of seeing with open eyes would not suffice this time.

Spread out below them, far as the horizon, Ba Sing Se was beautiful. The warm glow of lantern light reflected back at him against the yellow of Ursa’s eyes, but she did not seem to see the splendor of the city. Iroh found himself surprised by how much the passage of time had come to register on her face – the crinkling of skin at the corners of her eyes, the lines tracing either side of her mouth. So much laughter, so much worry. So many years.

“May I speak frankly, sister?” he asked into the twilight. She nodded assent, inviting him closer.

Iroh approached, reaching into the deep pockets of his robe to finger a soft package wrapped in silk. He was reluctant to part with it, and yet could think of no better time than this. Perhaps the whole reason it had found its way to him was for this moment. But he would hold on for a minute longer.

“You would be more comfortable if we were sending a man to keep watch over Ozai, wouldn’t you?”

It was a statement, more than a question, based on his tone. But Iroh left just enough of a query at the end for Ursa to deny it, should she wish.

“It shouldn’t matter,” she said softly, turning at last to face him head-on, “but somehow it does. To me, anyway. He still has his hands, his feet, his tongue. He’s still _him_ , Iroh. His mind and his heart haven’t changed…” she trailed off, wringing the front of her robe in her hands. She took in a steadying breath.

“You all talk as though without his bending, he’s powerless, that he poses no risk. But it was never his bending that I was afraid of.”

Ursa lowered her gaze, solemnly.

Iroh withdrew his hand, gently clutching the package, and placed it on the balcony rail. Sensing that it was for her, Ursa reached for it, carefully weighing it in her hands. As she began to undo the fine strand holding the silk closed, Iroh spoke.

“I understand your concern, sister – ” Ursa dealt him a disbelieving look, quickly looking back down at her hands – “but try to remember that this is not a marriage we are arranging. Ta Ming is to be his guard, not his consort. It is she who will have power over him, not the other way around.”

He watched as Ursa uncomprehendingly beheld the contents of the package, her eyes wide but her brows drawn down low. It was a long plait of hair, russet coloured and wavy almost to the point of curls. Before she could ask, he answered.

“She sent me that after attending one of Zuko’s re-education programs. Not even our defeat at the Outer Wall was enough for her to feel such shame.”

Though Ursa did not have the martial background to understand just how truly profound an act this had been for a once steadfast, unquestioningly loyal soldier, she did have the knowledge of a Fire Nation woman, and all the inherent vanities that came with it. Whether as a sign of one’s honour and place within the nation, or as a marker of beauty, hair was simply not a thing to be meddled with.

Ursa considered the braided strand reverently, taking in its length – it must have been shorn nearly flush from the other woman’s scalp – and then said what Iroh had been waiting for her to acknowledge.

“Iroh,” she began, her voice low, almost conspiratorial, “this is not Fire Nation hair.”

“Nevertheless, it belongs to a soldier of the Fire Nation,” he fixed his eyes on a distant point out in the expanse of the city, bringing his hand up to stroke his beard. “Ta Ming was a product of my grandfather’s war as much as she was an agent of my father’s.”

War child. Bastard. There were words for Ta Ming’s parentage. Orphan was as good as any, given how the unwanted girl had been sent to Harbour City, dropped on the doorstep of her sire’s nation and left to fend for herself. A testament to nearly a century’s worth of Fire Nation education and propaganda, she had somehow grown up without resentment. 

“She has been in the army for most of her life. She is not driven by ambition, but love of her country, her people. She has no secrets. There is nothing he can use against her, and I doubt there is much my brother can do to her that she has not already endured.”

“And what compensation will you offer her, for the acceptance and completion of so great and ugly a duty?”

Iroh drew himself up, his hand halted mid-stroke against his beard. Ursa read his hesitation, then scowled.

“Of course. She doesn’t get a choice, does she? You’re ordering her to do this.”

They would have to. Their options were too few, there could be no room for refusal. Besides, Iroh mused, Ta Ming’s loyalty to him – he had been her commanding officer, after all – was yet another reassurance of her neutrality. During the siege, he had once overheard the less kind of his squadron refer to her as ‘the general’s goat dog’, calling up the image of a gangly creature with dripping jowls, obediently staring at a dish of food, but never touching. Unflattering a comparison as it had been, there had been much truth in it. She would not suffer anyone to lay a hand on Ozai, nor allow him to harm anyone else, if that was her order. No matter what her personal feelings toward the man might be. 

Ursa took one last look at the long coil of hair in her hand, then carefully wrapped it again in its silk. She passed the small bundle back to Iroh morosely, her yellow eyes pleading as they met his own.

“Why didn’t you challenge him when you returned, Iroh? If you had been on the throne – ”

“And what?” the older man’s voice rose unexpectedly, a wave of heat radiating from his skin. Ursa took an involuntary step back, surprised by how suddenly irate he had become.

“Throw my country into civil war? Threaten the loss of many thousands of lives in a squabble for power I no longer wanted, and all without an heir? No, Lady Ursa, you do not get to ask that of me.” He took the package from her, roughly returning it to his pocket. With his other hand he pointed a finger at her.

“And what of you? You are quick to lay responsibility for Ozai at my feet, yet every day you were married you could have ended him. Instead you chose to reveal your knowledge to him so that it could be used against my father.”

Ursa opened her mouth to speak, but Iroh turned his head, raising the palm of the hand that he had used to point at her. His expression was strained.

“No, I know. You acted out of love for your children. I cannot blame you for that. I am sorry.”

He breathed in sharply through his nose, trying to calm himself. These were not words he would have been able to say six years ago, not after the Agni Kai. Granted, he had not known then that Ursa’s abandonment of her children had been for the sake of keeping them safe – Zuko in particular – from both their father and grandfather. Still, as he had watched Ozai’s hand descend upon his own son’s face, something akin to wrath had kindled in Iroh. _What kind of mother would leave a boy to this man?_

Of course, the question turned inward soon enough. What kind of uncle had _he_ been, to stay seated throughout the whole ordeal, to look away from his nephew’s suffering? 

Unexpectedly, Ursa reached her arm out to lay a consoling hand on his shoulder. 

“I am sorry, Iroh,” her voice barely more than a whisper, “You would be right to hate me for taking your father from you.”

Tentatively, Iroh reached up and guided Ursa’s hand from his shoulder, clasping it between both of his own. Her fingers were cold, his own almost uncomfortably warm. They were, he supposed, having a conversation much overdue, and one rendered all the more difficult with hindsight.

Grief had driven him from Ba Sing Se, and had followed him as word of Azulon’s death and Ozai’s ascension to the throne spread across the world. At first, his father’s alleged denial of his birthright had stung – Iroh was well-aware of his status as the first born – but it was a principled sort of shame. He was _supposed_ to be chastened by Azulon’s unorthodox proclamation, was _supposed_ to be angry that his throne had been usurped by his younger brother, but what really mortified him was that he could feel neither of these things to any real extent. There was simply too much relief in the way. Relief that he would not have to shoulder the immense burden of leading the Fire Nation, relief that he would not have to formally continue with the army or the Hundred Year War, relief that this was a decision made for him by the Fire Sages and by the people. It had been an abdication of almost all responsibility.

Of course, not all the people saw it that way. There were assassination attempts, _several_ , and more than one was made into a terrible public spectacle. But it was the tea server, the one who insisted she acted in Iroh’s name, that had forced his hand. Fearing as much for the lives of his people as for himself in the face of the new Fire Lord’s rage, Iroh had been obligated to endorse his brother beyond the usual swearing of allegiance. Rising from his obeisance, he had decried all detractors, denounced any involvement or support of the attempts on his brother’s life. The words had tasted like ash in his mouth, but there were no more assassins after that, and therefore no more executions, save the one.

As a sign of his leniency and appreciation, Ozai had the girl hung, rather than scorched. 

Before all that, there had been sorrow, too. His return to the Fire Nation marked by loss compounded upon loss.

Azulon had been old, Iroh tried to remind himself. Still, Sozin had lived an exceptionally long time – something all attributed to the influence of the comet – and as Azulon had been conceived while this power coursed through Sozin’s veins – there had been the expectation that he too, would reign well beyond the usual span of years. While he was no stranger to death, somehow coming home without his father to greet him had been one of the loneliest experiences of Iroh’s life.

The man would have died, one way or another, though, and there may even have been some mercy in Ursa’s contribution to his demise. She would not have offered Ozai something that caused great pain. He had to hold on to that.

Iroh cleared his throat, letting Ursa’s hand drop from his own.

“No, sister, I do not hate you. We both know that Ozai would have found a way, with or without you. And it was wrong for my father to demand what he did, especially in my name.”

Zuko had told Iroh the story, ultimately, connecting his father’s cryptic slander of vicious, treasonous things to what Ursa herself had revealed following their reunion. Iroh still did not believe that Azulon could be mad enough to demand the death of his own grandson, let alone on the heels of Lu Ten’s own violent end, but the man was gone. There could be no explanation now.

Ursa wiped at her eyes self-consciously, turning once again to stare out at the sprawling city. She finally seemed able to see it, all glittering lantern light and shadow.

“He was never cruel to me,” she admitted, “but I never could forgive him for bringing us together.”

Ozai’s proposal had been a farce, of course. With Azulon leering over his son’s shoulder, the literal will of the nation standing there in her mother’s greenhouse, how could she possibly have refused? Though she would never concede it to Iroh, after hearing of his threat to Zuko, it had been surprisingly easy to decide upon dispatching her father-in-law. 

“You, me, your father,” she sighed, “we’re all responsible, aren’t we? Any one of us could have done something about Ozai well before this point, and yet we didn’t, and now he has become a problem for everyone else to deal with.”

Iroh actually found it within himself to chuckle.

“All the more reason for us to respect Zuko’s decision in this, is it not?”

Ursa glanced at him tiredly, a small frown on her lips. Iroh continued, taking on a gentler tone.

“We had our chances, you and I. As did my brother. There is no point in clinging to past mistakes. What we have now is the time ahead of us, and ahead of your son. Like it or not, he has inherited the problem of his father, just as he will inherit all that we leave behind. Can we not make his future easier by accepting what he wants for his present?”

Ursa watched as several lanterns were extinguished. Slowly, the city was falling dark. It felt a horribly stupid thing to ask, but she had to hear it, one more time.

“You trust her?”

“I would have trusted her with my son’s life.”

* * *

Ta Ming would wait until the end of days for something if given an order to do so. Left to her own devices, however, the captain had a habit of prioritizing things as they arose. The letter she received by messenger hawk from Fire Lord Zuko and General Iroh had not specifically told her to wait, though it had not advised her to unofficially visit her new ward in prison, either.

Nonetheless, she had made the trek from her barrack to Capital City Prison, leaving her ostrich horse with one of the men posted outside. It was a reconnaissance mission, she told herself, no different from scouting out enemy territory.

As soon as she arrived, she knew something was wrong.

She had not expected a welcome – her arrival was sudden and unheralded, after all – but there had been something odd in the way the guard at the gate bristled at her, the way he mumbled the location of the prisoner’s cell as though hoping she might not catch what he said. Odder still had been the absence of guards the further she climbed up the prison stairs, the highest cells corresponding with the level of security deemed necessary for their occupants. Though closer to the sun, the upper cells were also furthest from Caldera’s warmth, often causing a strange fatigue in those prisoners who could bend. Escapes were unheard of, but even so, anyone who attempted to flee would have to choose between jumping from an impossible height or taking hundreds of steps down a winding spiral patrolled by dozens of men and women.

Former Fire Lord Ozai, naturally, had been sequestered right at the top.

As she neared her destination, thighs burning from the climb, Ta Ming ran a hand through her growing mane of hair. She had grown up with daily declarations of loyalty to Fire Lord Azulon, had spent five years praying for Fire Lord Ozai’s health and victory, and now – due to her allegiance to yet another Fire Lord, _long may he reign_ – she would be spending an untold number of days acting as guard to her previous sovereign.

She prayed to Agni that he wouldn’t recognize her.

* * *

Though he had not known it, Iroh had not been entirely truthful with Ursa when he told her that Ta Ming was a woman of no secrets. The captain had precisely two, and she kept them well, but they were secrets nonetheless, and ones she had purposefully hidden from him.

The first was what she had witnessed happen to Lu Ten on the battlefield.

The second was what had happened to her after General Iroh sent her back to the Royal Palace with news of his self-imposed exile.

Broken arm in a sling, she had traveled for many days by foot, by mount, and by ship until at last she touched down on Fire Nation soil for the first time in almost three years. It had been a relief to be home, but one she felt unworthy of. She returned humbled, a survivor of a bloody battle whose only success had too quickly been abandoned. Perhaps it was fitting that her ship had not found harbour until late in the night, even the sun refusing to shine its light on the shamed soldier.

Still, she had a duty. Her general had given her a message to be delivered to no one but the Fire Lord himself. She had marched from the harbor, up Sozin’s switchback, all the way to the Royal Palace, displaying Iroh’s seal whenever necessary to keep her from hindrance. She had been too tired, too focused on her mission, to think it strange no one offered more aid to the Crown Prince’s messenger. 

Nor had it occurred to her that she ought to bathe beforehand. Reluctant as she was to be the bearer of difficult news, she was more opposed to being delayed. News for the Fire Lord, from his own son, could not wait. Not after what had happened. Besides, a soldier’s information was infinitely more valuable than their appearance.

After days of hard travel and a journey on foot to the palace, the royal servants had disagreed vociferously.

“It is too late!”

“You are too filthy to be in his presence!”

“Can it not wait until morning?”

In the end, a compromise was reached. The servants hauled her to a part of the palace’s inner sanctum to clean her and her clothes, wrinkling their noses at the sight and smell of her armor, and she had been allowed to deliver her message as soon as they found a spare robe to throw over her. Her arm they left bandaged against her naked chest, sleeve hanging loosely from her shoulder.

Not one of them told her of Azulon’s passing. Not one of them spoke of the second son’s coronation.

Nearly dizzy with the heady perfume of jasmine soap they had doused her in, Ta Ming had raised her good arm – message clutched within her fist – and knocked on the door she had been deposited outside of. Not the curtained entrance of the throne room, but a private suite of some sort. A voice too young answered her,

“Enter.”

Steadying her breath, she obeyed.

She took the appropriate five steps into the room, then dropped into the lowest bow possible, pressing her forehead to the marble floor. The act was difficult with her one arm pressed between her and the floor, all her weight on the opposite shoulder. Still overtly warm from the forced bath, the soldier could feel herself begin to sweat.

“Forgive me, lord,” she managed to croak out, “but I have news from General Iroh.”

“Do you indeed?” the man’s voice was drawling and disinterested. A moment of panic coursed through Ta Ming. This was not the Fire Lord she had expected to deliver her message to. It was Prince Ozai, not Azulon, who rose before her, a bottle of plum wine in hand, the top half of his robes disheveled just enough that she had seen a glimpse of his skin before her nose found the floor.

She had seen the golden emblem in his hair, though. That made it irrefutable. 

Tucking in her chin, Ta Ming supported the weight of her upper body on her forehead, extending her good arm to indicate the roll of parchment she had been carrying. It was a risky move to make – she shouldn’t do anything to make the Fire Lord lower himself, but nor had she been given permission to rise.

The man made a scornful noise, then said, “Get up, woman.”

Ta Ming obeyed, keeping her eyes downcast. Ozai took the scroll from her once she was upright. Her hand free, she bowed at the waist, doing her best to make the Fire Nation salute, forcing the fingers of her broken arm to make a fist. Pain shot through her, nerves set alight. The message delivered, she ought to leave. A nervous thought prickled at the back of her neck – she hadn’t prayed for Ozai’s health this morning, had not known to do so. How many days had she been remiss in her duties to him as a citizen, let alone as a soldier?

As she took a step backwards, Ozai gestured at her vaguely with his hand, still holding the bottle of plum wine.

“Stay,” he commanded, lifting the bottle up to his lips, swallowing deeply. “You’ve come this far. Aren’t you curious what my dear brother has written?”

He broke the seal of the parchment unceremoniously, spread it across his desk and scanned the elegant characters, blowing a grunt of disgust through his nose as he read. Ta Ming continued to sweat, even as the residual heat of the bathwater fled her skin. She suppressed a shiver.

To her horror, Ozai’s eyes flicked over her, as though he had sensed the motion. Quickly reverting her gaze back to the floor, she watched as, with the slightest shift of his foot, the fire in the room’s hearth grew by several inches, immediately warming them. Had she braved looking up, she would have seen a crooked tilt to the Fire Lord’s lips, a rare smile of amusement. 

“Impressive,” he said at last, “Iroh speaks well of you. He says you’re the one who found my nephew’s body.”

The words were so innocuous, so straightforward, and yet Ta Ming couldn’t help but sense a threat. It was the way he said them, even as deep into the wine as he was. If she had been set on fire, his tone still would have left her cold. She nodded her head in a short, respectful nod. “Yes, lord.” 

“Though, maybe the praise of a man who cannot even deliver word of his own disgrace isn’t much praise at all,” the Fire Lord sneered, crumpling the parchment into a fist of flame. “Not only does he abandon the conquest of the last great Earth Kingdom city, but he sends you, an inferior, to deliver his excuses for all but defecting.”

Ta Ming bit her tongue, a flush of rage colouring her cheeks. Criticism of her beloved general was a hard thing to find among those who served him, and she was unused to hearing it without being able to respond. Worst of all, his comment made it sound as though _she_ were a source of dishonor to Iroh, as though her very presence in that room somehow reflected poorly on him.

 _Never_ , she thought. _I’d rather die_. 

“I live to serve, my lord,” she finally said, voice hollow.

Ozai let out a bark of laughter. “Oh, oh yes, you and every other soldier, noble, and citizen in this nation. You _all_ live to serve.” The words dripped disparagingly from his lips, damp with wine.

He straightened from the desk suddenly, a cruel glint in his amber eyes. He took several steps toward her.

“Prove it,” he hissed, “let’s see how loyal you really are.”

Ta Ming’s voice was level, her face blank.

“What would you have me do, lord?”

He circled her slowly, trailing a finger along her shoulders, collarbone, as though contemplating all he could insist upon. Ta Ming straightened her back, standing stiffly at attention, willing even her pulse to be appropriately sedate. At last he stopped, hooking his finger beneath her collar pointedly.

“Disrobe. We’ll start with that.”

Ta Ming brought her hand to her waist, slender fingers working carefully at the knot holding her borrowed robe closed. After a moment of struggle – she was working by feel, vision fixed on a spot just beyond Ozai’s shoulder – the sash fell to the floor. With a shrug of her shoulder, the rest pooled about her bare feet.

Her body was a mess of bruises and scrapes, pummeled as she had been by Earth Kingdom soldiers and their Agni-damned stones and discs. A burn across the back of her thigh told the story of an errant fire blast – one of the unfortunate realities of being a non-bender in a largely bending battalion of soldiers. Ta Ming stared straight ahead, telling herself that this was just another report, one which merely demanded her flesh as evidence. _This is what the loyal look like_ , she thought. _The loyal and the lucky._

Silence fell between them. After a moment, Ozai set the bottle of plum wine down against his desk with a _thud._ The woman did not flinch, offered him not so much as a quiver.

He reached up to toy with a damp strand of her hair, idly noticing how it curled too easily around his finger. Of course his brother would put his faith in a non-bending half-breed.

“Tell me, soldier,” he leaned in close, breathing huskily against the skin of neck, “Are you not cold?”

Still staring over his shoulder, Ta Ming let out a dutiful, “No, lord.”

He let her hair go, reaching down to twist one of her nipples painfully. The soldier took in a sharp breath through her nose, good hand clenching to a fist before overcoming instinct and flattening her fingers against her leg. 

“Your body says otherwise.”

“Yes, my lord,” she grated.

 _The Fire Lord is as a father to his people,_ Ta Ming repeated in her head, _he is Agni-blessed, and we are blessed to walk in his light. His will is our will, under his guidance we shall not be led astray. Righteous is his rule, he who rises with the sun, long may he reign._

If she never smelled plum wine again, it would be too soon.

His hand left her breast.

“Leave,” he growled.

And as before, Ta Ming obeyed.

* * *

Looking back on the incident, one corridor away from where the fallen Fire Lord was supposed to be, Ta Ming wondered if perhaps she had not recognized the value of her injured arm then. Had not appreciated that a broken toy was so much less fun to play with. That it had not been her desperately maintained composure that frustrated him to her dismissal.

She had never told Iroh about it. And now that _she_ was going to be the one with power over _him_ , she assumed it was too late for such revelations. Better, perhaps, to simply pretend it had never happened. Better to hope that the haze of liquor had erased her from Ozai’s memory.

As she approached, Ta Ming could hear an unusual ruckus of noise. Men were shouting, jeering, yet none of the cells around her seemed occupied. It was not a riot. She checked the faded number etched into a door, realizing she was only one cell away from her destination. A sick knowing slithered in her stomach.

She pushed open the unlocked door to Ozai’s cell, taking in the scene of four men against one.

The parallel struck her uncomfortably. As she had been, he was naked, body a mess of injury.

_But when I knelt, it was out of respect._

It is wrong, what she is witnessing. It is not the way. It lacks all honour.

The words are out of her mouth before she can debate their merit in giving away her advantage of surprise. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few things:  
> \- Firstly, please forgive the time-jump that happens between the end of the previous chapter and the beginning of this one. As I got going I realized that Iroh and Ursa have a dynamic that needed much more fleshing out than I had originally given them. I'm hoping that someone will read my mediocre attempt at exploring their shared trauma and will write a better version. (bonus headcanon: everything Iroh knows about botany is from his limited interactions with Ursa, hence his "delectable tea or deadly poison" gaffe).  
> \- For those wondering, I fell in love with the unnamed, single-panel-appearance character on pg 26 of 'Smoke and Shadow' pt 3, and that's entirely where I drew Ta Ming from. Physically she exists in comics canon, but otherwise she's a total OC.  
> \- Much of how I view Iroh and the Siege of Ba Sing Se is informed by Johane Matte (rufftoon on deviantart)'s interpretation of him. If you haven't checked out her work, especially her AU with Zhao in the Northern Water Tribe, I highly recommend you do so.  
> \- Finally, to those disappointed it wasn't Suki coming to poor Ozai's aid, my bad. That really should be a fic somewhere, and I'd read the shit out of it. We need more Suki, Ty Lee, Ozai prison interactions.


	4. Escape

“ _What in Agni’s name are you doing?_ ”

Kyeong startled at the sound of the woman’s voice, and Ozai wrenched his head from the man’s grasp, spitting reflexively. The guard turned to face the figure silhouetted in the doorway, wearing a bemused grin of too many teeth.

“What does it look like?” he asked, and reached down to fondle his swollen prick, unwilling to let the interruption spoil things.

The woman stepped forward, fists clenched and shoulders squared back in a stance of disused authority. From his vantage point on his knees, Ozai eyed her warily. His whole head throbbed – the swollen skin of his right eye, his broken nose, cheekbone, the roaring of his own pulse in his ears – but a new heat blistered across his cheeks at the thought of being seen by yet another person in this wretched state.

The woman’s eyes flickered over him briefly, and he could feel the muscles of his thighs tense instinctively, as though to shield himself from her view, but then her furious gaze returned to Kyeong.

“This ends _now_ ,” she snarled at him, her eyes clearly trained anywhere but below his waist. The guard laughed, echoed by his three companions.

“Oh, don’t be like that,” he cajoled, “ _Stay._ If you’re fine with sloppy seconds, or rather –” he made an exaggerated show of counting on his unoccupied hand – “filthy fifths, there’s plenty of room for you in tonight’s entertainment.” 

The woman narrowed her eyes in the dim light of the cell, and Ozai could feel his stomach roil in a somersault. Unlikely as it was, given her apparent distaste for the situation, the thought of having a woman force herself on him was only marginally less distressing than the thorough face-fucking Kyeong had intended to give – and that was only because he doubted his body would be up to the task, which was a form of degradation all on its own.

Either way, he knew he had neither the energy nor the strength to fend off yet another assault. He could already feel the panicked prickle of adrenaline begin to fade, yielding once again to the fog of delirious exhaustion. 

The woman gestured at him, and he stiffened. Why was she here, anyway? Even with only one good eye it was clear to Ozai that she wasn’t a prison guard – her uniform was a different cut, with armor belonging to the resurrected air-force. A soldier, then. Possibly a loyalist, though Zuko had dealt an exceptional blow to his father’s supporters by imprisoning Ukano and his so-called revisionists, and few were open about their politics anymore.

Even fractured as they were, the notion of a single woman attempting a coup was laughable. 

It occurred to him that she might be one of Azula’s kemurikage agents in disguise, but he dismissed the thought almost as soon as it entered his mind. His daughter, sane or otherwise, had not made any attempt to see him since her little excursion to relocate Ursa. That he had any notion of her actions in the last several years was due only to the loose tongues of the prison guards, and whatever Zuko deigned to tell him during his visits.

No, whoever this woman was, she was not here to restore him to the throne, nor to rescue him on his daughter’s behalf. It was a bitter, lonely truth, but at least it was not a surprise.

As she gestured, the woman grated out, “We don’t treat prisoners this way.”

The words sounded strangely hollow as they evaporated from her tongue. As though she didn’t fully believe them herself. 

“All evidence to the contrary,” Kyeong sneered, taking a threatening step closer to the woman. “Maybe we ought to show you how we treat people who interrupt us, too.”

To Ozai’s left, the firebending guard flicked his wrists and a steady pair of fire daggers jetted from his hands. He watched the woman shift her body, eyes flickering, taking in the guards’ positions around her, the open door of the cage. She widened her own stance, mouth set in a grim line.

And then the cell erupted into chaos. 

* * *

All warfare is based on deception, or so it is said. Ta Ming had always thought this particularly accurate when fighting against benders. From a distance, a single bender can _appear_ to be much stronger, much more of a challenge. Up close, denied the advantage of space, even a group of them aren’t as difficult as might seem.

She held on to that deep conviction when the guard before her, still somehow palming his own erection, shot out a ball of flame at her from his other hand.

Already low to the ground, she dropped even further, bolting forward in a crouch. A rush of heat roared above her, sweat blossoming involuntarily across her back, but she plowed on. The hard ridge of her skull caught the man in the stomach, winding him, and the growing fire in his hand abruptly fizzled. She wrapped her arms around his legs, ignoring the pungent smell of his exposed crotch from just below her nose, and propelled him like a battering ram towards the open door of Ozai’s cage.

Once inside the cage she hauled him down, aided by the steady descent of his unbelted trousers. They wrestled on the floor for a moment before she was able to hook one forearm beneath his calf and wrench upward with all her strength while plunging down her elbow against the upper part of the same leg. There was a sickening, satisfactory noise – somewhere between a _crack_ and a _pop_ – and then the man started screaming.

No wonder. His leg was _wrong,_ bent up at the knee in a cruel parody of his earlier erection, which now flopped flaccidly as he writhed in pain. The man howled, clutching at the injury, far too occupied with pain for any further attempts at firebending.

“You bitch!” he screamed, his eyes wide and very white. Ta Ming drove her fist against his head a few times for good measure, and after the third hit he fell silent.

Panting, she rose and made a come-hither motion with her hands. It was an act of far greater bravado than she actually felt, but was necessary. The bottleneck created by the cage door would only be an advantage if they took her bait, if they drove themselves forward without thinking in order to get at her. If one of them had the presence of mind to simply lock her in, it would be a disaster. But experience had taught Ta Ming that no man liked being taunted, and only the very smart, very controlled ones were able to resist a woman’s mockery. 

“Come get me, _boys_.”

As expected – as hoped – the guard with the fire daggers lunged at her next. He moved in a rush of fury, bearing down on her as though he hoped to burn his way through her from shoulder to hip. Ta Ming dug her heels into the cold stone of the cell, arms shooting up to meet him. She caught his wrists, just barely, and her forehead broke out with beads of sweat. The daggers were narrow points of searing heat, hissing and sparking in the dim light. 

Her arms quivered, a drop of sweat sliding down the bridge of her nose. _Almost…_ Still locking arms with the guard, Ta Ming shifted her feet slightly, preparing.

Above her head, the guard unclenched his fists, made open claws of his hands instead. It altered the shape and flow of his fire. The daggers lengthened into jets, and the acrid smell of burning hair hit Ta Ming’s nostrils as she struggled to disregard her body’s natural inclination to flinch.

Singed, she decided then was as good as ever to make her move. She brought her foot up squarely between the guard’s legs and then leaned back, letting the momentum of their earlier grapple and her kick carry him over her head. He landed further into the cell, face-first.

There was no time for a neat neutralization as there had been with the first guard, however. As though breaking out of a shocked stupor, the largest of the four men barreled through the cage door with a roar. 

Caught between the two men – the firebending guard had made an impressively quick recovery and stood, gasping, behind her – Ta Ming had no choice but to ride the force of the larger man’s motion. The air left her lungs with a loud _huff_ as they collided, and then her head cranked back and met the firebending guard’s nose. An explosion of coppery warmth sprayed from his face and down her neck, and then the three of them landed in a heap.

Collectively dazed, they stayed that way for a beat, the cell strangely quiet except for gulping, heavy breaths.

Ta Ming groaned.

Beneath her, the firebending guard had abandoned clutching the wet mess of his nose and was reaching for her, his palms hot with the impending blast of twin flames. She squirmed, jutting her elbows defensively.

 _Get up, get up, get up!_

Too slow.

The guard’s burning hands found purchase along one side of her ribcage and her hip, heat momentarily dulled by her armor, but scalding nonetheless. Ta Ming let out a pained cry, eyes wide. She thrashed harder, the movement made all the more difficult by the pawing hands of the large guard on top of her, trying to secure a hold on her arms.

With a grunt she twisted, awkwardly, face-down at last with her legs on either side of the firebending guard. The angry, blistered skin beneath her armor ached, but she forced herself to move, reaching up with her arms to grab the man by the ears and lift his head off the ground. Then she forced her arms down and the flames from the guard’s hand extinguished. She repeated the motion – _thud, thud, thud_ – hammering his head against the floor until blood from his ears began to trickle over her fingers. A small wisp of smoke coiled up from the corner of his mouth. 

Then the large guard on top of her, having forgone any more attempts at grabbing her arms, hauled her up by the hair. 

* * *

Lhao and Ozai had watched as the woman wrangled with Kyeong, then Yueh and the other guard. The whole ordeal had only lasted a matter of minutes, but even that short span of time had been telling.

As a small man, and a non-bender to boot, Lhao had a history of taking on the role of a scraping lackey. He recognized some of that in the woman before him – a patient tenacity, not exactly underhanded to same degree as him, but certainly determined. It made her several times more dangerous than a boisterous bully like Kyeong would ever be, if she’d only abandon whatever code of ethics clearly ruled her.

She fought well and strategically, and though the mystery of why she had appeared that night remained, her objective was obvious. Despite obviously having no affiliation with former Governor Ukano’s revisionist movement, she wanted to keep Ozai from harm.

Lhao could use that.

For Ozai, teetering on the edge of consciousness as he was, the violent efficiency of the woman’s combat had been a source of great relief. Watching her had also brought about a resurgence of his rage. It was disgraceful, he thought, that he should need rescuing, let alone that a single woman without bending would be able to accomplish the task.

He had contributed nothing to this endeavor, barely more than a trembling mass on the floor. It was offensive to think that a few weeks of torture and deprivation had reduced him to this, that lack of food, water, and sleep could leave him so maladroit.

He was not some helpless maid at the mouth of a dragon’s den, had never been so. By all rights he ought to be the dragon. 

“Quite the friend you have,” Lhao muttered to him derisively as he moved to enter the cage with Yueh and the struggling woman.

Friend? Ozai blinked sluggishly, glancing from Lhao’s back then to the woman, all gnashing teeth and scrabbling hands, Yueh having lifted her nearly off the floor. The word was entirely wrong for any relationship he'd ever had, even in childhood. He had servants, enemies, subjects. People who performed his will, or who opposed it. _Friend_ implied too much loyalty to fall into the latter category, and altogether too much autonomy for the former. 

He watched as Lhao hauled back his arm and drove his fist into the woman’s gut as Yueh held her up. She groaned, spit bubbling past her lips at the impact. 

“We’ve got five hours before the next shift of guards,” Lhao said, his voice calm and steady. Another punch, this one to the charred section of armor at her ribs. The woman clamped her teeth together, strangling the sound of her own pain.

Lhao continued, “And before the night is done, I’d like to know who you are, and just what else you’d be willing to do for our esteemed prisoner.”

He made as though to strike her, and then his fist loosened, coming to grip her by the chin. Lhao scanned her face, trying to read the expression in her chestnut brown eyes. She was not, by Fire Nation standards, a pretty woman. With her narrow features and high cheekbones, she might have passed for handsome if she had been born a man, but as it was, with that strange mess of Earth Kingdom hair? Plain. Very plain.

His hand slid down, coming to rest at the knotted belt of her uniform.

“I can’t say I’m as impressive as Kyeong over there,” he tilted his head in the direction of the guard with the broken leg, “but I promise I’m much more… _imaginative._ ”

The woman jerked her hips away, barely keeping purchase on the ground with her feet.

Gingerly, Ozai tucked his feet beneath him and willed his body to stand. As he watched, an old Fire Nation adage occurred to him – one originally coined by non-benders. _Better to die by the sword you know than the flame you don’t._ It was a platitude that even Ozai’s brother, fond of all things proverbial, regularly rejected. Sometimes the unknown, taking a risk, was vastly preferable to the certain. This was no different.

He had no idea what this woman meant for him, but whatever her intentions were, he was convinced they were a better alternative to what he knew awaited him.

His vision swam, and he steeled himself against the impending dizziness. He took a silent, shaky step forward. Then another. Then another, at even greater speed.

He rammed into Lhao just as the man had slithered a hand down the waist of the woman’s trousers. The guard fell sideways, Yueh released the woman’s hair, and then all was a blur of motion.

Lhao rolled over, spite and hatred in his eyes, and Ozai dropped his full weight down onto his knees, pressing hard against the exposed flesh of the guard’s neck. Lhao thrashed, eyes suddenly bulging and fearful. With his hands still bound behind his back, Ozai struggled to keep his balance atop the man’s neck.

He fumed at how graceless the act was, how difficult it was for him to subdue even a single opponent in this state. His head buzzed almost painfully, his body ill and aching from the constant surges of adrenaline. Pathetic, how drained even such a simple action made him. He grit his teeth, grinding his knee hard into Lhao’s throat, and eventually the man stopped struggling beneath him.

When he looked up, the woman had managed to wedge Yueh’s head through the bars of the cage. The large man flailed and roared in frustration like a khomodo rhino, but he was well and truly stuck. 

The woman hastily retied her belt, then knelt and yanked a ring of keys from Kyeong’s waist. She gave Ozai a nod of acknowledgment, then freed one of his wrists from the shackles behind his back. He flexed his fingers appreciatively, bringing his hands up to his face for inspection. The woman hesitated for a moment, then seemed to overcome whatever conflict waged within her and secured the shackle back on his wrist.

Ozai felt his face warp into an expression of fury, snarling up at the woman.

“Poor thanks for saving you,” he croaked.

“This is a relocation, not a rescue mission.”

The woman’s voice wasn’t cold, exactly, but matter-of-fact. Almost as though she were reassuring herself, as much as putting him in his place.

“Can you stand?”

He tried, but the effort was too much. The last reserves of his anger had vanished, now there was only the hunger, the thirst, the tiredness. His eyes were heavy _,_ so heavy.

* * *

Ta Ming rolled her eyes in exasperation, hitching her arms beneath him and hoisting him up onto her shoulders. The burns along her hip and ribs chaffed and complained, but she set her mouth in a grim line and marched out the cell.

She was halfway down the stairs of the prison before it occurred to her that she probably should have grabbed something to cover him with. Her thighs burned with the effort of supporting her weight and Ozai’s, and the thought of turning around or extending their escape by searching for a spare set of clothes was abandoned.

 _Well_ , she thought mirthlessly, as she resumed her descent down the seemingly endless stairs, _ass-first it is._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter got way out of hand. I literally rewrote it three times, trying to figure out how to balance both Ta Ming's and Ozai's perspectives, and I'm still not happy with it. :P   
> Ah well. Going to try and keep the next ones shorter.


	5. Edge of Consequence

He was unconscious.

_No, that’s not right._

How could he be unconscious if he _knew_ that were the case? The knowledge was a strange and unexpected complication. Shouldn’t all be soot-dark and soundless, a dry drowning of the senses?

Dreaming, perhaps.

Ozai could not remember the last time he had dreamt, if he ever had. It had been a talking point amongst the Fire Sages when he had been a boy. Princes were supposed to dream, to receive visions from Agni of their would-be conquests, just as his brother had of Ba Sing Se. For Ozai, sleep had always been an extended blink – a shuttering of the eyes and of the waking mind until the body was ready to serve its purpose again. He always woke rested.

For all their mummering, Ozai rather considered the Fire Sages fools for their emphasis on something so _ephemeral,_ and which took place at night, no less, when the reassuring blaze of the sun could not be consulted. Iroh putting stock in such things had always struck the younger man as the first sign of his brother’s weakness, his utter stupidity. 

He’d had no need for visions or premonitions stirred up in sleep like silt from the bottom of a lucid stream – even as a child, Ozai was a creature of living conviction, all uncompromising decisiveness and iron-clad will.

So, what then?

… dead?

On instinct, he looked down at himself, surprised to find that he was clothed. His hands traced the familiar frame of his body beneath the robes, searching for signs of a wound.

“Wrong again, Fire Lord.”

The voice was guttural and velveteen all at once, pervasive, unpleasant. Ozai turned to glower at the speaker, and felt as though he had been struck violently at the back of the head.

The world around him spun like a wheel, colours and landscapes shifting in a blur, even the ground beneath his feet somehow seeming to _move_ , and then suddenly, all was still.

He reeled, dropped to his knees, and tried to reign in the overpowering nausea that had overcome him.

“Tsk tsk,” the voice crooned above him, “this position is most unbecoming for a man of your station. Or have you grown accustomed to kneeling?”

Ozai snarled and made to stand, to strike out at the insolent speaker, but his vision swam again. He blinked – one moment staring at the shape of a gnarled, leafless tree in the far distance, and in the next, down at the inverted and worn heel of a soldier’s boot.

“Ah, not quite ready, are you?”

His head lolled.

* * *

Ta Ming grit her teeth and adjusted the man draped over her shoulder. She paused in the cover of shadow near the end of the prison stairway, breathing in deep and steady before committing to the last leg of her – their – escape. She’d come with no plan, no intention of _a_ _nything_ transpiring that had, and her mind raced with the need for direction. How much easier this whole ordeal would have been if she had only known.

Perhaps not, though.

She still would have had to go alone. Would not have been able to tell anyone or issue a command for assistance from the small body of privates and corporals that she – and she still needed reminding of this fact – had rank over. The whole point of this relocation was that it be kept a secret. 

No, she realized, the only way this could possibly have gone any different would be if there were direct intervention from Fire Lord Zuko himself. The captain blinked a bead of sweat from her eye. Such a thing might seem a welcome alternative now, in the moment, but she knew it would have been counterproductive to the ultimate mission. The Fire Lord’s direct involvement with his disgraced father would likely be seen more as meddling rather than mercy – it would complicate the sympathies of his supporters, potentially encourage some of them to join his detractors. One did not need to be an Ozai loyalist or revisionist to take issue with his son. The four guards she had ambushed were proof enough of that. 

Renouncing the Fire Lord was a difficult thing for Ta Ming to comprehend, and the thought of multiple citizens doing so as a result of what she did next sent an uncomfortable sensation down her spine. Unconsciously, her grip on the crest of Ozai’s toned thigh tightened. 

_If_ – and it was rather a big _if_ – she managed to get her charge outside the prison walls, the priority would be to avoid all manner of detection and recognition. The unstated but obvious element of her mission was to make things as easy for Fire Lord Zuko as possible. She would hide Ozai in her home and await further instruction from her lord and General Iroh. Simple enough. 

Getting to that point, less so.

Ta Ming was no war minister, no strategist, but she did understand consequence. Whatever action she took to get to safety would reflect back not only on herself, but on her lord. Killing seemed out of the question, a wanton act of violence, and yet how else to ensure anonymity? If she was unnecessarily aggressive, perhaps Ozai’s escape could be twisted into a revisionist kidnapping. But then, Fire Lord Zuko would be seen as incompetent, a man with no control over his own people. The uproar might even be enough to incite another insurrection.

Never mind the fact he'd be lying to his own people. 

The captain gnawed her bottom lip, peeling a loose bit of skin.

Telling the truth seemed equally problematic. The political repercussions would be just as bad if the people decided their Fire Lord was too lenient, sparing his father from the odious realities of prison.

The sneering guard’s voice echoed back at her at the thought.

_We don’t treat prisoners this way._

_All evidence to the contrary._

Ta Ming’s fingers nearly pressed bruises into Ozai’s leg.

General Iroh had not treated prisoners poorly – when there were any to be taken. But he was one man, and an exceptional man at that, in all meanings of the word, she realized. 

There had been that battalion of captured Earth Kingdom men, trussed up in crimson and ebony, their hands blackened and charred, placed on the wrong side of the frontline…

The woman’s ears burned and buzzed, a flood of unsavory information from her re-education coming back. Even the Fire Nation’s own people had not been immune to their own barbarism. The infantry still skipped a division, after the willful massacre of the 41st.

The massacre sanctioned by the very man she now found herself ordered to protect.

Was it still an honourable death if your own nation led you to it like koala sheep to the abattoir?

 _You are not a judge,_ she reminded herself with a shaky inhale, recalling the sight of the former Fire Lord on his knees and how ill it had made her. S _uch decisions are not for you. You are a soldier. You serve, you fight._

It was just so much easier to do that when she had an order to follow, rather than having to determine a directive for herself. Ta Ming sighed, shifting Ozai’s weight on her shoulder. In some ways, she supposed they were lucky. She had crossed paths with no guards on the way down the stairs, had been forced to hurt no one else. Whatever the four renegades had arranged for that evening, it had inadvertently allowed her to avoid detection up to this point. And with the change of guards still hours away, she might have managed to slip out and back to her mount unnoticed on her own – Ta Ming had never been particularly wily, but she wore inconsequentiality well, something that almost passed for invisibility. 

There was, however, the matter of her charge. Marching out the only entrance of the prison with a naked man was hardly the definition of discrete, even this deep into the night.

She could make a mad dash for it, she supposed, legs pumping, knees up to her chest, the man slung over her shoulders bouncing like a sack of daikon as she raced to get beyond the gate. It was that, or leave him sequestered in the shadows somewhere while she tried to locate her ostrich horse, and pray to Agni that no one spotted either of them in the meantime. Neither were favorable gambits. 

The muscles beneath her clawed grip twitched, and the captain startled as an exhausted voice growled over her shoulder.

“Put. Me. Down.”

* * *

The woman bent her knees almost automatically at the command, until Ozai could feel his feet carefully guided back to the prison floor. She kept one hand firmly on his shoulder, her broad palm and slender fingers warm and calloused against his bare skin. As Ozai swayed he realized it was as much to keep him upright as to keep him from escape. He did not jerk away. Her touch was, as intended, steadying.

The world here did not spin, there was no bodiless voice that crooned mockingly. 

“Which level are we on?” Ozai asked huskily, his throat impossibly dry. 

The woman opened her mouth, but seemed to struggle for an answer. Training dictated that a soldier respond quickly, accurately, reverently. It occurred to Ozai that she was lost for an honorific. To call him by name would challenge so many edicts of propriety as to be unthinkable for her, yet it would be just as improper – treasonous, in fact – to fall back on the old habit and call him ‘lord’.

“The main level, almost at the entrance… sir.”

So _that_ was her reasonable compromise. Agni, she was quick to make herself subordinate. That was good. That was _useful._ He might not even have to twist her apprehension of disrespect into outright fear.

“And you walked?”

She shook her head.

“I came by ostrich horse.”

Perfect.

Ozai peered at the darkened landing before them, gathering his bearings. His lips moved as he counted soundlessly to himself, limping past the woman and down the corridor towards the east, away from the prison’s entrance. He stopped in front of a sconce, where a torch crackled against the cool stone. The woman stared at him, her expression a mix of relief and mistrust. If he weren’t battered to such utter hell and clinging to this new and inexplicable wave of cogency in desperation, Ozai might have allowed himself a smirk.

A desire for leadership and direction was one thing, in a soldier, but her obvious consolation at no longer being wholly in charge was almost pathetic. 

He gestured for her, one hand beckoning in his shackles while the other hung limp. Cautiously, she approached.

“When my brother escaped this place, destroying much of it in the process, the architects realized the folly of having only a single entrance. A corridor was added during repairs, leading straight to the stables. Hidden, naturally.” 

The woman eyed him warily in the torchlight. He stared at her squarely, took in the sight of her scorched armor, the blistered skin it revealed, her singed hair, bloodied knuckles.

 _All that, just for me._ The furious shame of needing to be rescued had been replaced by something else. It was almost gratifying. 

He reached out, grabbed her chin, sneering.

“Brave little soldier girl.”

It was an absurd thing to do and say, especially given her age, for there was nothing _girlish_ about this woman at all. Ozai wasn’t quite sure what had driven him to do it, other than the need to somehow assert himself, to regain a sense of power that had spiraled so far from him the past couple weeks. 

She swatted his hand away, a slightly disapproving turn to her mouth. Ozai grinned – it was more of a grimace by the time it reached his face – reaching up to grasp the sconce. Part of the metal frame depressed beneath his hand. A rumble followed, and then a portion of the wall slid away from view.

“Let’s go marching home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you hadn't noticed, I'm a stickler for details. This turned into one of those chapters where I needed to plant the seeds of things to come, so hopefully as things continue these less plot progression chapters will be worthwhile. 
> 
> Big big thanks to everyone who has left kudos or comments! <3  
> I live for that kind of thing and really appreciate connecting with folks through comments.


	6. Cleansing and Spirits

It occurred to Ozai as he stalked unsteadily through the shadowed corridor that he really ought to be more cautious with this woman.

Vigilance, ruthlessness, prudence – though never outright paranoia – were highly ranked among the reasons he survived his tenure as Fire Lord. And all of those qualities dictated that he know as much as possible about the reason for his liberation. Why, exactly, had a lone member of the air-force come calling at his cell so late in the evening? 

The memory of her expression, the strangled note of fury in her voice as she took in the scene, assured him that she had not known what waited for her on the other side of the door. Yet, save for the fact she had not arrived a mere twenty minutes earlier and spared him the whole ordeal, her timing had been impeccable. It was remarkable, really. 

Ozai was not a man who took such seeming coincidences lightly. In his experience, they simply did not exist.

Nevertheless, as each step grew more laborious than the last, he found he really couldn’t be bothered to care. He had made his wager, had opted for the unknown, and was reconciled with the consequences.

Wherever she intended to take him, it was _away,_ far from this miserable place of imprisonment. She clearly did not mean to kill him, else she would have already done it.

And even if she did have that in mind, Ozai knew, there wasn’t enough fight left in him to do much about it. He had only been able to cling to wakefulness for as long as he had because he was loath to return to that neither-dreaming-nor-dead place of tilting landscapes and bodiless voice. It had been utterly foreign to him, without any of the enticements of an undiscovered land. Far from it. The place had been insurmountably unwelcoming in its strangeness – as though forbidden – and the sick intuition of being where he so clearly wasn’t supposed to be had left him queasy in a way that had nothing to do with his body’s tortured condition. 

Ozai would not have admitted to calling it fear, but it was something equally base. The primal avoidance of the unknown and hintingly unpleasant. 

The loose edge of a stone caught the calloused bottom of his foot, and he stumbled. Little more than a dark figure in the shadows, the woman’s hand curled around his bicep – _Ah,_ there _you are_ – and steadied him.

The woman’s hand was unexpectedly warm and rough against his skin, her grip firm but more protective than punitive. He supposed she preferred keeping him on his feet rather than having to carry him again. In that, at least, they were agreed.

He did not jerk away.

As promised, the dark corridor eventually gave way to a door, and on the other side was the quaintly pleasant smell of hay. Several ostrich horses and other beasts of burden stood steaming in the cool night air, heads lowered into a series of troughs. Ozai and the woman skirted through the stalls in silence before finding where her ostrich horse had been stabled. The creature clicked its beak contentedly at her as she stroked its neck, but narrowed its eyes as it caught sight of her companion.

Her grip on Ozai’s arm slid down to his wrist, raising his hand up so the creature could smell him properly through the rank cloud of blood and piss and shit that surrounded him. Somehow in the fresh air, the stench was stronger, cutting through the crisp night.

The ostrich horse flared its nostrils, took a great breath in and then released it, damp, against Ozai’s palm. It tossed its head, then shuffled closer, apparently satisfied. Unthinking, Ozai lifted his hand to scratch beneath the animal’s chin.

It was such a simple act, such an utterly _human_ thing to do, that Ta Ming almost wondered if she had broken the wrong man free.

“We should get going,” she hissed quietly, “Get on.”

Ozai hadn’t ridden an ostrich horse – or anything else, for that matter – in years. He’d been quite good at it when he was younger, but it had been a form of ribald entertainment, not a means of transport suitable for a prince – let-alone a Fire Lord. He lifted his arms weakly to hoist himself into the saddle, the act promptly draining him of whatever reserve of lucidity that had managed to sustain him the last several minutes. He made to mount the animal, and nearly fell.

The woman stifled a noise of surprise and moved to catch him. She placed one hand against his back – Ozai hissed through his teeth as her fingers unintentionally scraped against the scorched lash one of the guards had given him – her other palm pushing insistently at the junction of flesh between thigh and buttock. The near-intimacy of it, the way her hand cupped against him, caused every muscle in Ozai’s exhausted body to stiffen.

“Steady, now,” she whispered, and it was just as likely that she spoke to the ostrich horse as to him.

With the help of another firm shove, Ozai flopped awkwardly into place, the hard leather of the saddle creaking and uncomfortable beneath him.

And there it was, the accumulated indignities of the evening summed up in a single moment.

Vanquished Fire Lord Ozai, stripped of his bending and his self-proclaimed title of Phoenix King, beaten and naked, the taste of another man still lingering in his mouth, unable to even haul himself atop an ostrich horse.

Ozai thanked Agni for the cover of night, for the fact the woman could not see the haze of shame that had crept across his face. It was bad enough she’d had to carry him.

The woman hoisted herself with a grunt of discomfort – no doubt the result of her own burns – and then her arms had snaked around his waist, grasping for the reigns. Behind him, Ozai could hear her gently cluck her tongue, and then the ostrich horse was moving. Before he knew it, they had trotted out past the prison wall and into the dark of night.

Had he not been on the cusp of losing consciousness every minute of the journey, Ozai was certain the feeling of freedom would have sparked some sort of elation within him. As it was, the frayed threads of his willpower were almost completely undone, the lid of his undamaged eye growing leaden, though he desperately did not want to revisit wherever his undreaming mind had drifted last time.

So he retreated from the aching temptation of sleep, relied on the last anchor to wakefulness his body could possibly offer – his senses.

It was easy enough to do, assailed as he was by a myriad sensations long-denied him in the prison cell.

There was the open sky above him, an endless expanse of black silk, stitched through with stars. The wind brushing itself like fingers through his soiled hair, cool against the concentrated throbbing pain of his face.

His shoulders complained from having been angled behind him during the earlier assault, and his bare thighs stuck uncomfortably to the worn leather of the saddle.

All of him hurt, some parts just more than others.

He threaded his fingers through the ostrich horse’s mane, rolling the small knots and tangles through his fingertips, every disruption of texture another moment of consciousness secured.

The hot skittering of the woman’s breath against his back, the way she stiffly elevated her wrists so as to not let them drop into his exposed lap, the rhythmic jolt of her legs against his own, that too kept him awake. Desire had nothing to do with it – sweet Agni above, he was too far gone for that to even be a consideration – but the sheer proximity, the physicality of it, had been unbelievably reassuring after years of no contact.

In conjunction with the remnants of adrenaline riding his veins, the sudden onslaught of sight and smell, sound and sensation? Her closeness was nearly overwhelming.

Before long, the woman had steered the ostrich horse across the rough plain and back towards the outskirts of the royal city. She navigated carefully, creeping through alleys and avoiding the main street until at last she guided their mount towards a two-level home built directly into the rising stone ridge of the caldera.

“Well,” the tone of her voice over his shoulder was one of relief, “we made it.”

Ta Ming gratefully slipped from the saddle to guide the ostrich horse through her fence. They had been fortunate enough to not be followed, but she knew that would be short-lived. Even if their harried departure from the prison had gone entirely unnoticed, the absence of four guards come shift change would not, nor would the disappearance of their most contentious prisoner. It would only be a matter of time before the streets rung out with panic. 

There was so much she had to prepare for.

Ozai slumped forward on the animal, fistfuls of mane sticking up through his fingers. She looked up at him, saw that his uninjured eye was hazy, his face drawn in an expression of utmost exhaustion.

She reached up to help ease him down. He grasped at her shoulder with manacled hands, his legs uncooperative, and nearly fell into her as he dismounted. Ta Ming grimaced and curled an arm supportively around his waist for yet another time that night, wondering if any of the imperial guards could have claimed such closeness with their liege.

 _No_ , she thought, _likely not. That would be_ inappropriate.

She nudged her ostrich horse in the general direction of its stall, in a lean-to along the side of her home. The beast retreated readily, ducking its head towards a bucket of water. Ta Ming would have to tend to it properly in the morning. _Add it to the list._

As she guided Ozai inside, she mused that she had never been so thankful for the cover of night, and her lack of neighbours. Buildings were more generously spread out along the city’s periphery, the more desirable properties all located near the centre of the caldera, closer to the palace. He captain’s wage meant that she could easily have afforded something other than the simple dwelling along the outskirts, but Ta Ming had spent so long sharing barracks and tents that she found living on her own strange, even lonely. Lavish chambers in an expensive estate would not change that – to her logic, an abundance of unnecessary rooms might even exacerbate the sense of isolation.

Tonight though, she was exceedingly glad for the privacy. She cringed as she imagined the scandalized look on the face of the elderly woman who lived in the house to the east, watching as she half-carried a bedraggled and naked man across her doorstep.

What a devastating blow to whatever reputation she might have _that_ would be, never mind the fact the man in question was a deposed Fire Lord, and the nation’s key war criminal.

With her free arm, Ta Ming raised a hand to her face and pinched the bridge of her nose. _Agni, what a disaster_. She’d only meant to look in on Ozai, driven by curiosity to see if prison had humbled him. Had only meant to steel herself for spending the next several months – _years_ , maybe – in his company.

She dragged her hand down her face, her lower lip pulling away with an almost audible pop. There was one, albeit small, victory to consider, however. General Iroh and Fire Lord Zuko had tasked her with keeping Ozai safe as much as keeping others safe from him. Though it was premature to their intended schedule, she _had_ dutifully removed him from harm’s way that evening.

A small warmth budded in her chest at the thought. 

They trudged awkwardly inside. As he had in the hidden corridor, the leaden weight of Ozai’s feet caused him to stumble, his toe caught on the coarse jute rug of the entry. Suddenly off-balance, Ta Ming had to wrap her other arm around his waist to keep them both from falling. The motion brought them face-to-face, and for the first time that evening she took more than a perfunctory look at her charge.

One eye had completely swollen shut, a mottled bruise of red and purple. Beneath that, the skin on the ridge of his cheekbone was split and raw, also beginning to swell. Uneven trails of blood had carved their way down from his nose to his chin. His lips were cracked and peeling. His hair was a mess of shit – the stench of it had been impossible to ignore, but this was the first time she realized quite where it had come from – and she watched, horrified, as a fat louse struggled through the filth, burrowing out of sight in the ruined ebony strands.

Ta Ming wrinkled her nose. He reeked of piss, too.

Not that she was much better.

The sight of him shifted something inside her. It was impossible to reconcile the wretched figure before her with the one that loomed in her memory, the man who had snatched at her chin barely more than an hour ago. The Ozai who had burnt his own child’s face, who had rained fire and destruction upon Wulong Forest, could not possibly be this same man who struggled to stay upright.

It was difficult for her to hate him when he was like this. When he looked so… _broken._

As she scanned his face, Ozai caught her gaze with his uninjured eye, the haze of delirium having cleared. For a moment Ta Ming was amazed at the fury still burning within him, the fierce determination with which he kept himself awake. The unrelenting and ferocious pride. _That_ was the Ozai she remembered, the one she hoped had no memory of her.

It strained credulity that any Fire Nation citizen would be able to keep their chin up in proud defiance when in such a state, but then, she reasoned, Ozai was no mere citizen. If anyone could sluice shame from themselves like water off a turtleduck’s back, it would be the man who had once called himself Phoenix King.

One blazing, bloodshot amber eye bore into her, and the captain tensed, preparing herself to drop him and make a quick step back. But then he lowered his gaze, the corners of his mouth turned down grimly. Before she could react, Ozai had dropped his head against her shoulder, leaning completely into her awkward, supportive embrace. She stood stiffly, her throat suddenly tight, eyes warily watching his hair for other signs of vermin.

A heavy sigh tore through him, and she felt him shudder against her.

“…I’m so tired…” he croaked.

After he had stumbled into the woman’s arms for what seemed the umpteenth time that night, Ozai had wanted to make a retort, some snide comment to preserve – reestablish? – his dignity. _Now that you’ve got me, what are you going to do with me?_ But it was pointless. As soon as he had caught her expression of appraisal, the way her muddy brown eyes catalogued his condition, shame burned hot beneath his skin. He wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and be relieved of the whole embarrassing, disgusting spectacle of himself.

Yet he dreaded what waited for him on the other side.

Vulnerability was the last thing Ta Ming had been prepared for, and with the utterance of that appalling admission, something clicked into place in her brain. She had not realized until that moment the full extent of his torture, even staring it in the face as she had been.

This was not simply the result of one sound beating.

And with that realization, something cemented itself at the base of Ta Ming’s spine.

“I know,” she offered him quietly, “let’s just get you cleaned up first. Then you can sleep.”

Apart from her natural frugality, her preference for simplicity, there was one other thing that kept Ta Ming from seeking lodgings elsewhere in the city. Her modest home along the royal city’s border had been designed with an elegant bathroom, the waters heated by a spring deep beneath the caldera’s surface and ingeniously pumped up through the floor. For all that she might miss sleeping with rough ground beneath her back, Ta Ming readily accepted the luxury of hot water, and it was this that she hastened to steer Ozai into.

From the main foyer of her home she guided him through an archway and then down a short set of steps into a decently sized pool, carved right into the floor. He was pliant, letting her ease him down until he sat, blinking dolefully at her.

Ta Ming adjusted a pair of valves and watched as Ozai first flinched away from the water abruptly flooding over his feet, relaxing as it began to climb up his calves. His toes moved reflexively, as though pleased with the sudden sensation of heat. Cautiously, she increased the temperature, wondering if he retained a firebender’s propensity for warmth now that the element was no longer subject to his will.

While the water continued to fill the pool, she bundled several items into her arms. A bar of army-issue insecticidal soap – pests were an enemy unto themselves, wreaking havoc among troops and supplies alike – a fine-toothed comb, a small bottle of scented oil, a jar of salve, a stiff-bristled brush. She placed all of them on the tiled floor beside Ozai as he sat, the warmth of the water seeming to pull some of the tension from his body. At least, his posture seemed less desperately upright.

His head pitched forward, and Ta Ming nearly had to dive to catch him before he fell face-first into the water. _Agni’s light,_ the captain swore to herself, _he’ll drown if I don’t hold him up._

For a moment she hesitated, the water soaking up the sleeve of her uniform unpleasantly. She considered the long burn on his back, the raw and blistered skin beneath her own scorched armor, the sweat beneath her arms, how close her own hair had come to his infested mane. She needed a bath just as much as he did.

_No sense wasting water, I suppose._

As she carefully shed her clothing, Ta Ming reminded herself that this was not the first time she had been naked with a man – nor, for that matter, with him. Her mouth still felt dry, a sour taste teasing the back of her tongue. 

She slipped into the water behind Ozai, hissing as her wounds were submerged, and reached over awkwardly to turn off the valves so the water didn’t flood over onto the floor. 

With one arm she steadied him, and with the other she reached over to grab the soap. She plunged it into the hot water, stroked small circles into the waxy substance with her thumb, creating a rich lather. Satisfied, she brought the soap to Ozai’s head and began to scrub.

Ta Ming was thorough without being rough, mindful without overt kindness. Again and again, she brought handfuls of water up to douse the stinging suds from Ozai’s head, using the other hand to shield his eyes. She ran her fingers through his hair, working the soap against his scalp, surreptitiously feeling for any hidden wounds.

When she was certain that all trace of shit had been washed away, she worked her way down, grabbing the stiff-bristled brush and scuffing it against the skin of his shoulders, his arms, his sides. The coarse brush, the heat of the water, the harsh soap, all combined to send his skin flushing an unexpected shade of pink.

Ozai drank in her touch, the contrast of sensation high on his chest where his skin broke through the water, the smooth stone beneath him, _everything_ , even the obnoxious smell of the soap. Every moment saw another ounce of tension leave his body, and as he relaxed, he leaned backwards. The woman’s skin was slick against his in the water, her breasts twin points of firmness just below his shoulder blades.

Had Ursa ever done this with him? He couldn’t recall.

Then again, there was something so completely unerotic in this woman’s diligence that it seemed an unfair comparison. This was not the way a wife bathed her husband, nor quite how a child might be washed after playing in the mud. It occupied some strange, neutral territory in between.

Ozai let out a sound – half groan, half sigh – and let his head fall back against the woman’s shoulder, his split cheek cradled against her neck. Her touch was a tether for the moment, a reminder that even with this complete stranger, he was awake, _safe_. 

It wasn’t a feeling he’d had often.

Ta Ming paused as the man adjusted his position, sinking against her, but then took the opportunity to reach parts of him she had been unable to before. She lathered more soap in her hand, clumsily coated Ozai’s jaw with it, drawing her hand down through his beard. She repeated the act under each of his arms, then paused, having remembered where else he had enough hair to warrant attention.

Her fingers twitched against the bar of soap, and she swallowed.

“This will probably burn,” she warned him before she submerged her hands, scrubbing the soap into the fine trail of black hair that started just below his navel. Ta Ming fixed her eyes pointedly at the far edge of the pool as her hands continued their descent, working soap through the dark nest of hair, before finally giving Ozai two firm strokes in the name of hygiene.

She cleared her throat awkwardly as she withdrew her hands, trying not to think too hard about the unexpected weight of him in her hand, and shifted so she could finally address her own body.

When she was finished, Ta Ming set the soap and brush back on the ledge on the pool. She grabbed the bottle of oil and the comb, and reached once more for Ozai’s hair. She dislodged several nits, careful to crush them against the hard surface of the floor, and after several minutes the captain was pleased to find her charge’s long hair almost restored to its former glory.

What surprised her, though, was that in the process she had discovered several strands of silver, most of them concentrated near Ozai’s temples. There weren’t many, and they were impossible to see except at such a close range, and yet Ta Ming still felt stupefied. She knew Ozai was not a young man, certainly not getting any younger, but the man’s unyielding will seemed to extend to time itself. The rest of him hardly betrayed his age, and as a result it was hard not to think of him as eternal, ever the prince in his late thirties ascending the throne.

This abrupt evidence of his humanity felt taboo to the captain, somehow. It wasn’t something she had ever been meant to see.

It would only make things harder.

With more suddenness than was necessary, she adjusted a lever and began to drain the water from the pool. 

Once she had dried them both, Ta Ming went about applying a salve to the burn on Ozai’s back and the two she had sustained from earlier that evening. It stung, and was disagreeably sticky, but with any luck neither of them would develop scars.

_I’ve got enough as it is._

Ozai swayed where he stood as she smeared the balm over his back, his waist finally – thankfully – obscured by a towel. When she was finished, Ta Ming didn’t even give him the option of walking, all too aware of how it would end if she did. Resolutely, she hooked one arm beneath his knees and, grunting, hoisted him up.

“Don’t…” he protested, but the words died on his lips.

Ta Ming mounted the small series of stairs that led to her bedroom, depositing him on the thin mattress with a huff. She contemplated him for a moment, then hurried down the stairs, returning with the ring of keys she had purloined.

By the time she returned, Ozai had already begun to snore.

Delicately, Ta Ming unlocked the shackle of one wrist and looped it through the bamboo poles of her headboard. She latched it back onto his wrist, giving the chain a gentle tug.

“Hardly the Fire Nation’s finest security, but it’ll do,” she muttered to herself.

The captain rubbed a weary hand over her eyes, rummaged for a tunic to sleep in, and then unfurled a well-worn bedroll onto the floor. As she settled into it, listening to the sound of Ozai’s deep and steady breathing, she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of nostalgia for the war, the closeness of sleeping with others.

It was the most at home she’d felt in years. 

* * *

“Ah, finally decided to join us, have you?”

Ozai jerked his head up, as though breaking the surface of an ocean. A snarl tore through his clenched teeth as he took in his bearings, utterly disorientated. Why was he _here_ again? He’d been comfortable wherever he’d been before – warm, clean for what felt like the first time in months.

Something skittered just beyond his periphery, clicking uncannily as it went. He spun, and was faced with an abomination.

The thing was easily the length of five men, all slithering exoskeleton and multitudinous legs. Worst of all was the head – grotesquely vaginal and eye-like all at once – through which protruded the leering face of a bearded man.

Ozai blanched, eyes wide, a muscle in his face twitching.

“Ah ah ah, don’t do that, Fire Lord,” the thing taunted, reaching out to drag one awful leg down Ozai’s cheek, “It’s been so long since I’ve been able to add a visage quite as handsome as yours to my collection. If you get too expressive, I might just _forget_ that you’re here by request.”

Shuddering, Ozai took a step back.

“What do you mean?”

“Vaatu wants you,” the thing said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. It raised two legs in the mockery of a shrug.

Ozai searched his mind, tried to place the name. It sounded as though it should be familiar. A small and intrinsically deep part of him – a part that had not existed prior to his encounter with the Avatar – squirmed as though in recognition, but he could bring nothing to mind.

“I don’t know who that is,” he heard himself say, trying to control his face into an expression of cool disinterest, “and I’m certain I have no need of them.”

The thing before him blinked, the bearded man’s face sucked inward and replaced by a red-eyed, blue-skinned oni.

“Oh, I rather think you do,” it chuckled darkly, “After all, don’t you want your bending back?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scrub-a-dub-dub, Ozai in the tub...   
> Found a better groove with this chapter I think, more of a seamless transition between the two points of narrative focus. Hopefully not as disorientating as I had feared it would be.   
> Much as I enjoy writing Ta Ming in awkward scenarios with Ozai, there's a part of me that just wants to yeet her into the future to see how she might handle someone like Tarrlok. Poor thing. XD  
> And yay, we get Zuko in the next chapter!   
> Many thanks to all who have read and left comments and kudos. We're almost already at 1000 hits on this ridiculous thing!


	7. The Bargain

Ozai barked out an unamused laugh, ignoring the monstrosity’s instruction to not emote. How could he not? What the thing proposed was preposterous.

“My bending?” he sneered, incredulous. “It’s _gone,_ you grotesque fuck. The Avatar wrenched it out of me like a knife from a wound. That’s not something a healer can just restore!”

The act of taking his bending, of twisting his energy and wrestling it into submission, should not have been possible, either. It was a perversion of nature, an abominable power, and had been a violation unlike anything Ozai had ever known – up to and including the earlier invasion of his mouth. That it had been perpetrated by a boy, a mere child, had not been any comfort in the slightest.

That the boy had thought it merciful, had deemed it less heavy on his conscience, _that_ had sparked Ozai’s mind with horrified wonder. What would this lost-then-found-again Avatar be capable of as a man, with tutelage not harried by war? What other monstrous power lurked beneath that monkish frame?

Of course, he hadn’t been able to fully process the experience until some days later, when the shock and exhaustion and the residual thrum of the comet in his veins had run their course. Then it had been excruciating. Terrifying.

Powerlessness was not something Ozai had ever been acquainted with, and it had suited him poorly.

To be offered that power back, to be made to feel that such a thing was within the realm of possibility – as though the process of losing it were a mere mistake, something easily undone – somehow only served to spark his rage. It was insulting. 

Ozai felt his hands clench into fists as the creature skittered in serpentine circles, wrapping around him and leering its head upside down.

“You misunderstand, Fire Lord,” the red oni eyes glowed softly in displeasure, “I do not speak of a simple healer.”

“Oh? What, then?” he scoffed through gritted teeth.

The thing blinked, the blue-skinned oni replaced by a woman’s face, dark hair curtaining pale skin in defiance of gravity, as though underwater. The voice remained the same, discordantly masculine as it crooned from plump, inarguably kissable lips.

“This is the Spirit World, you fool. The Avatar might be a bridge between this place and your own, but he is certainly not the only source of power.” The thing – _spirit_ , Ozai realized – knotted itself around him, lifting him off the ground by the waist.

Despite himself, Ozai brought his hands down to brace himself against the spirit’s body, shuddering at the altogether too smooth, too cool surface of its exoskeleton. It was a struggle to not kick his legs, but he knew his feet would find only air.

From this elevated point, awkward and awful as it was, he could take stock his surroundings. It wasn’t so much a craggy plain as another caldera, a disc of land encircled by snares of sharp stone. He thought of the lamprey whales of the south sea, the intricate puncture rings they left on the armored hulls of Fire Nation ships. That was what he was being carted off towards – just another gaping maw with too many teeth.

And at the centre of it, a tree.

Even from a distance, Ozai could tell that it was an ancient thing, gnarled and twisted, hard almost to the point of petrification. The tangle of branches reaching skyward brought to mind his father’s rheumatic knuckles, misshapen by age and frozen in permanent spasm thanks to his wife’s poison.

Ozai blinked, tried to clear his mind of such thoughts. They were unwelcome at the best of times, but _here_? Unwelcome and – some quiet voice deep in his skull told him – utterly unwise. 

“There are spirits here older than memory,” the many-faced spirit continued, scuttling towards the lifeless tree at an unnatural pace. “Spirits forever linked to the elements and aspects of your world, and oldest among them are Vaatu and Raava. Like Tui and La, they are push and pull, light and dark, chaos and peace, eternally linked.”

It deposited him on the ground unceremoniously, and then continued its twining motions through the tree’s roots, up the trunk, wringing itself through the bony branches.

“Raava is aligned with your Avatar, but _you_ , you and your forefathers are an embodiment of Vaatu unlike any other. Your war, all the change that you’ve introduced through industrial advancement, the fear and destruction that your nation spread in the last century… There isn’t a corner of the mortal plane untouched by Sozin’s line.”

 _And rightly so_ , he wanted to mutter in response, the whole point of the last hundred years had been to share the Fire Nation’s superiority with the rest of the world. To mould it, shape it into a better version of itself. To unshackle it from the past. A part of Ozai – the preening, prideful part he never could quite quell – wanted to swell with the spirit’s recognition of his personal impact and the longer legacy of his family, but the rest of him reigned in the temptation. There was nothing to gloat over. While necessary to reshaping the world, fear and destruction had only been meant as means to an end. They were never supposed to be the ultimate goal, nor had he even been able to achieve it.

The world had not crumbled into ash, and he had not reached through the wreckage to raise it up into something new and glorious.

For all the spirit’s praise, the deposed lord knew, intimately, how history was reshaped by those with power, and he knew just as assuredly that his own place in the pages would be woefully short.

“You flatter like a courtesan,” he shouted derisively, “But I fail to see how any of that has anything to do with restoring my bending.”

To Ozai’s credit, few actually would. The story of Raava and Vaatu had long since been lost to even the most obscure of historians and sages – even Avatar Aang knew nothing of the spirit that resided within him, incarnate – and as all but the most provincial villages in the Fire Nation had eschewed any spiritual connections beyond Agni, it was no wonder that Azulon’s second son had little knowledge of what lay beyond the material world.

Iroh, naturally, had been the exception to that rule. At first Ozai’s elder brother’s interest in the Spirit World had been of a similar nature as Zhao’s – mere curiosity, a question of academic aptitude before becoming a matter of information to be weaponized. For all his impulsiveness and short-temper, Zhao had been surprisingly at home among a stack of books and parchment. But where the admiral’s research always remained a point of martial advantage – as had been the case regarding the ocean and moon spirits – Iroh’s eventually became something else. Spirits, his brother had once claimed, were as essential to the human world as to their own. They contributed to the balance of things. They were to be _respected_.

Ozai had laughed in his brother’s face for that particular comment.

He wasn’t laughing now.

From within the tree, something large and dark stirred. A new voice, deeper and harsher, boomed out across the scattered stones.

“What Koh is saying is that you are, and have always been, antithetical to the Avatar. That is a quality we share.”

As it had before, that simultaneously ancient and yet unfamiliar part of himself, seemingly abandoned by the Avatar, squirmed anxiously deep in Ozai’s gut. He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry, but took several steps forward. Within a massive hollow in the tree’s trunk he could see a large shadow shift and churn, but found that his eyes stung if he tried to focus on it beyond that. It was reminiscent of how some stars could only be seen clearly in the periphery, as though the spirit within the tree was intangible enough that to be stared at directly would cause it to fade away.

That, or it was so incredibly powerful that Ozai’s mortal vision was incapable of truly comprehending what was before him.

The spirit in the tree – Vaatu, he surmised – continued.

“The Avatar tampered with your chi, but did not destroy it. Your energy remains, and because of your nature, you should be receptive to my power.”

“ _Should_?” Ozai countered, disliking the element of doubt, and disliking even more the sense that he had no say in the matter whatsoever. “And what happens if my energy is incompatible?” Agni, he hated how the words sounded on his tongue, the sheer _foolishness_ of them. It was like bandying hypotheticals in a children’s story. 

Still twining through the branches of the tree, the spirit named Koh blinked, the previous woman’s face replaced with the garishly pigmented visage of a mandrill. It bared its fangs, eyes sharp pinpricks of black against the bursts of red and blue.

“You’ll die,” the mandrill’s mouth moved over the words, lips pulling in ways nature had not intended. “Most humans can only survive a few minutes of being fused with a spirit, and those that do are generally never the same. Their bodies are altered, sometimes beyond recognition or function.”

Ozai made a reckless, scathing noise and wrinkled his nose.

“Then you’ve brought me here only to offer oblivion?”

“What we offer,” Vaatu boomed out, the motions of the spirit’s shadowy form agitated and sharp, “is no less than what you intended for the world.”

Koh unwound itself from the tree, slunk down to weave in a lazy circumference around Ozai. With each pass it seemed to change faces – a woman with a scar across her mouth, a fish, an ancient warrior, an Earth Kingdom scholar, a Water Tribeswoman, a fat-cheeked child.

“And your circumstances are not the same as the others,” the spirit crooned, voice velvety. “This will be an entirely new process. Something that has never been done before.”

Ozai arched a brow at that, glaring. He’d had more than enough of lending himself out in the name of experimentation. That was ultimately what his marriage to Ursa had been, in his father’s eyes. Azulon’s calculated trial of combining two bloodlines, little more than partnering a stud and bitch in heat to see what the union produced.

At least when he fucked his wife there hadn’t been much likelihood of dying.

The thought of Ursa sent something hot and violent shivering down his spine. Broken glimpses of her flashed through his mind – the way her hair had fanned out across the bed the night of their wedding, the bright glint in her eyes as the curtains rose from the theatre stage on Ember Island, the look of utter devastation on her face when he had lied and told her he’d had her old lover killed.

Ozai’s hands balled and unclenched, the tips of his fingers _aching_ with the absence of heat that used to course through him. Sparks ought to have rolled off him in that moment of rage and misery, a smoky haze rising from his shoulders, but nothing came.

He felt blindingly empty. Hollow. Little more than a scrap of charcoal. 

“How?” he rasped at the spirits. “How will this be different?”

“Is there a solstice happening?” Koh asked, voice bordering on snide. “Is your body in a spiritually powerful place? Did you meditate your way to us?”

Ozai glowered at the spirit, refused to dignify its questions with any response. The answers, of course, were obvious – no, it was neither solstice nor equinox, his body was in a soldier’s home somewhere along the ridge of the caldera and far from the nearest shrine or temple, and he had not made his way into the Spirit World willingly. Even if he had tried, his presence there should have been an impossibility – he was not a spiritually sensitive man, and only the most enlightened mortals were supposedly able to make contact with the spirits. _That much_ he had gleaned from Iroh.

The silhouette of a thought formed in Ozai’s mind, and seeing his amber eyes glint with comprehension, Koh continued.

“When the Avatar entered you — ” Ozai cringed at the words, “— your energies competed for dominance. By exerting his will upon you, the Avatar unknowingly left a part of himself behind. That is the nature of balance. Nothing taken without something given. You would not be able to enter the Spirit World without it. That sliver of spirit connects you to us in a way that was only possible for Avatars before.” 

There was something in Koh’s tone that suggested the spirit was just as aware of the irony as Ozai.

“You’ve also absorbed the power of a comet,” it intoned, continuing its sinewy dance, “which is not to be discounted. Its effect on your grandfather was profound – longevity and strength beyond the usual span of years, virility included – and it will help your body resist the consequences of spiritual fusion.”

Ozai flickered his eyes from Koh to the shadowy figure of Vaatu, shifting back and forth restlessly in the tree. He jutted his chin in the spirit’s direction.

“All of which is speculation,” he huffed, “and less than meaningless if I am to be… joined… with something that cannot leave the confines of this tree.”

Vaatu stilled, and then a horrible sound filled the craggy expanse. Laughter. 

“You misunderstand,” the spirit intoned, voice thunderous with authority. “Even with the full power of your grandfather’s comet and whatever the Avatar has unknowingly bestowed, I would destroy you. This is another way in which our arrangement shall differentiate from others. When Raava and I do battle, we lose parts of ourselves to the exchange – a little order and a little chaos dispersed with every blow. Instead of a full spirit, you shall be merged with a remnant of myself. Something more malleable, but which still carries my influence, my power.” 

Ozai found himself standing rigidly straight, his hands behind his back, his face ferociously devoid of expression. Even a sliver of a spirit’s power was more than what he currently had.

His mind raced with the possibility. There were plenty of people – civilians, sages, high-ranking military officers – who remained loyal to him even without his bending. That number would only increase if his inner fire were to return, and it might even be possible to reclaim the throne from his son.

He could return to being Fire Lord. He could seek out vengeance. 

“And my bending?” he asked, “How does that factor into this madness?”

“It won’t be quite as it was,” Koh answered, now wearing the guise of a theatrical dragon mask. “After all, it will be a product of the Spirit World, and therefore a sort of mirror or inversion. But it will flow with your chi as before.”

“And aside from the still considerable chance that this…union… will kill me, what is the cost?” Amber eyes pierced unflinchingly through the vacant holes of the dragon mask. “You’ve said it yourself. Nothing is given without something being taken in exchange.”

He took a threatening step towards the undulating spirit.

“What will _I_ be giving _you_ in all this?”

It was Vaatu who replied.

“Your afterlife, if you believe in such things,” the spirit said bluntly. “Though you will be merged with more spiritual energy than most mortals, it will be like a contaminant. The Spirit World will not accept you wholly, but will be unable to reject you so long as I exist.”

Ozai licked his lips, frowning. He had faced down dozens of assassination attempts, had fought more Agni Kais than he could count, any one of which might have spelled out his demise. Yet death – his own, at least – was a reality he had rarely contended with. He had planned for Azula to outlive him, tried to groom her for that inevitability, but had spared little thought for waited on the other side of the veil.

Such considerations had always been Iroh’s, and so naturally, he avoided them.

“There will be changes, too,” Vaatu continued, “but these will be more of your own making. Your grandfather’s comet amplified your bending, my power will also amplify all that it recognizes within you. Anything that kindles chaos, disorder. Some of this you may have a measure of control over, some of it you will simply have to allow if you want to access all that will be made available.”

So then, he would be surrendering not only his spirit in this exchange, but it seemed a portion of his autonomy, perhaps even his sanity. It was an increasingly raw deal. 

“I should refuse,” he said, as much to himself as to the spirits.

Above him, the strangely coloured sky darkened, clouds twisting and roiling in the angry semblance of entrails. Beneath him, the rough ground trembled as though shot through with thunder. Whatever force that bound Vaatu to the tree practically glowed with the strain of keeping the spirit contained.

Ozai’s feet took him back a step without his mind commanding it.

“You could,” Vaatu’s voice boomed, seeming to ricochet between the various peaks of rock in the distance, “but to do so would mean losing any chance you have of altering your destiny. What waits for you in the mortal world if you return empty-handed? Shackles and the slow, shameful death of the defeated? You don’t even have the warmth of another to go crawling back to.”

Unbidden, Ozai thought of broad-palmed hands combing through his hair. His dispelled it with the same ease he might once have flicked soot from his fingertips. 

“You have the opportunity to do what no one before you has done, several times over! Why squander your only hope of avenging yourself against the Avatar?” Vaatu persisted. “I remain bound to this prison for several decades, yet. The Avatar will have entered another incarnation by the time Harmonic Convergence arrives, when Raava and I will once again wrestle for supremacy. But, if you are able to kill this Avatar while he is most connected to Raava – while he is in the Avatar state – then the cycle will be broken completely. You will be rid of an enemy, as will I. _Permanently._ ”

Ozai drew in a deep, thoughtful breath. Despite his misgivings, the spirit spoke truth. There was nothing good waiting for him back in the waking world – as the soldier herself had said, his unusual transference from the prison was temporary. He would be rotting behind bars soon enough, while his son sat on a throne he had not rightfully earned and the Avatar flitted about, perhaps pulling the bending from any who opposed him.

The thought made Ozai bristle in a way he found difficult to name. His indignation at being stripped of his bending was, naturally, at the forefront, but there was something else. A vague sense of injustice that any one person could wield so much power, could so utterly decimate those who stood in defiance.

It was not the same as what he and his forefathers had done the world over, he told himself. It couldn’t be. Theirs had been brutal, bloody work at times, yes, but they had not resorting to spiritual maiming. Death was an inescapable companion to conquest, but it was also natural. Whether one died in battle or in old age was simply a matter of circumstance. To be separated from one’s bending, however – a part of oneself as intimate as breathing or as sex – was more than just cruel, it was unnatural to the point of perversion. 

_What did the Avatar know of the world_ , Ozai found himself wondering. He had emerged a century late, an antiquated relic of culture and philosophy no longer relevant. His beliefs were, by definition, stuck in the past. If he had a mind to, he could impede progress in an untold number of ways, force nations back from the peak of prosperity. The boy was heralded as a bringer of balance, but what he really would impose was a period of stasis. The realization washed over Ozai like a wave breaking on the shore.

He had not made it through his nearly fifty years without regrets by making poorly considered decisions – not as a ruler, nor simply as a man. There had been some mistakes, and grave ones, as his encounter with the Avatar had proven, but what Vaatu offered had the potential to rectify that and so much more. It seemed clear now that his defeat had been destined so that he might rise from it, imbued with an even greater power than before – well and truly phoenix-like. Not simply as a means to avenge himself, but to keep a foe from undoing all that he and his family had striven for.

It was no longer simply an opportunity to complete a task he had already devoted himself to. It was a _duty_.

Vaatu shifted restlessly in the prison-hollow of the tree, and Ozai raised his head to stare, intently, at where he assumed the spirit’s eyes would be if it had any.

“Very well then. How do we proceed?”

The spirit Koh wove itself towards Ozai, leering through yet another stolen face.

“You’ll want to hold very still for this, Fire Lord.”

Ozai squared his shoulders, tried to relax his face into an expression of disinterest. It was disquieting, to know that his own pulse should be thundering in his ears at that moment, but to hear nothing. He did not like to be so separated from his organs, his skin, himself. He merely mimicked breathing, his spirit clinging to its mortal container. 

Koh blinked, but no new visage was forthcoming. Instead, Ozai found himself staring into the impossibly dark gash, like a hollowed-out eye socket.

“The spirit that birthed Koh, the Mother of Faces, has the power to take and alter memory,” Vaatu spoke from the tree, its voice level and smooth, almost as though trying to calm Ozai with a story. “With that comes the ability to give new faces, whole new identities. It is a transformative process, not unlike what happens when a spirit passes through the flesh of a mortal, but mediated.”

“I possess the same power,” Koh continued, smugly, “though I much prefer the act of taking faces, rather than giving them.”

Ozai curled his lip.

“I did not agree to losing my face.”

“Nor shall you,” Vaatu assured him, twisting within the tree. “Koh is simply a vessel for my remnant, a way to ensure that bestowing you with my power won’t have unintended consequences.”

“How kind of you to volunteer,” Ozai drawled before he could stop himself. From the corner of his eye, he could see something small and dark slither out from beneath Vaatu’s tree.

The shadow slunk towards Koh, wound itself up the spirit’s elongated body, and then squirmed into the gaping cavity of its empty face. The spirit shuddered visibly, thrashing, then several of its horrible legs struck out and held Ozai in place. With another mighty convulsion, Koh thrust its head down, nearly enveloping all of Ozai’s own.

Something like smoke – but altogether too wet – prodded at his nostrils, his mouth, the corners of his eyes. Ozai shivered, suppressing the instinct to recoil.

 _Pretend it’s a kiss,_ a voice suggested – whether his own, or Koh’s, or something else entirely he did not know. Reluctantly, he parted his lips, and then the spirit-remnant wormed inside of him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, I goofed up and promised Zuko for this chapter, but it's actually going to be the next one. This just... *waves hands vaguely* ... I had a lot of explaining to do. And also am officially on the hunt for a job, so there were some distractions. Sorry all! 
> 
> As bribery for forgiveness, I offer the Fire Nation's most beleaguered captain in beautiful colour [here](https://crookedmouth-mountainbones.tumblr.com/post/633284929011187712/absolutely-brilliant-commission-pieces-by-brian).
> 
> Also, if you read this chapter before Nov. 21, it has since been updated. Folks were right, the initial version included an Ozai who drank too much dumb bitch juice.


End file.
